Sirotablog
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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September 21, 2007 7:33 AM
1994 Redux: The Consequences of Dems' New NAFTA
UPDATE: Bloomberg News is now reporting the Senate Finance Committee this morning backed the "free-trade agreement between the U.S. and Peru, approving the deal without amendment...The committee voted 18 to 3 in favor of the agreement."
My latest weekly newspaper column for Creators Syndicate is out today, and, as promised, it is on the three-headed NAFTA quietly wending its way through Congress right now. Let me add some political data to the substantive details in the column about how this new NAFTA sells out American workers and how it parallels the destructive push for the original NAFTA in the early 1990s.
As various polls show, Democrats are losing ground because its own voters are becoming disillusioned. An August Gallup poll, for example, reports that "Congress' approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974." This mirrors a June Washington Post poll finding a major drop in approval ratings for the Congress - and that "much of that drop was fueled by lower approval ratings of the Democrats in Congress among strong opponents of the war, independents and liberal Democrats." OpenLeft's Chris Bowers yesterday noted that Republicans actually give the Democratic Congress higher job-approval ratings than Democrats and Independents - and that's not encouraging, considering that most self-declared Republicans will likely end up voting Republican for Congress come election time.
What these numbers say is that Democratic and Independent voters understand that they are being ignored by Congress - that Democratic leaders are driving "over their dead bodies," as I quote the chairman of American Express saying in my column. While the war is the most high profile of the issues, the fight over jobs, wages, the economy and political corruption underlies everything - and is all encapsulated by the trade debate, as it was during NAFTA. And any look at polling trends show that Americans understand that NAFTA sold them out, and want a change. This is why, as I noted in the column, so many Democratic candidates ran explicitly on a promise to end NAFTA-style trade agreements.
That's why Democratic leaders' push for this new NAFTA is not just a shameless reversal of a campaign promise or a wholesale abandonment of the middle class, it is also politically dangerous because it threatens to further depress support for Democrats from Democratic and Independent voters. Remember, folks, the 1994 Republican takeover did not happen because of a massive upsurge in Republican voting - it happened because Democratic turnout was depressed. As Public Citizen reports:
"In 1994, the Democrats lost control of the House after turnout amongst labor households and non-unionized working class families declined. Polling found that upset about NAFTA's passage and specifically about local representative's support of NAFTA moved many traditional Democratic party voters to stay home on election day. The 1994 elections were remarkable in that low turnout -- not swings from Democratic to Republican party support -- decided many of the seats which switched parties on margins of fewer than 1000 votes."
As I noted yesterday, at least some Democratic lawmakers are trying to stop the deals with Peru, Panama and Colombia from moving forward. They are trying to get the party to live up to its promises to fundamentally change our trade policy. But their fight faces long odds as the White House joins up with former Clinton administration officials-turned-corporate-lobbyists to try to pass this three-headed NAFTA. Its deja vu all over again - and, as I say in the Creators column, if these Democratic leaders keep pushing these lobbyist-written trade deals, don't be surprised if we're looking at another 1994 again.
Let me conclude by saying that trade and globalization are going to be a recurring focus of my column because these issues are arguably the most important we face, because they reaches into so many other issues - from economic growth, to human rights, to global warming to national security. Sadly, these issues also get extremely little media attention, and when they do, conservative and neoliberal pundits march in lockstep to endorse every single lobbyist-written trade deal that comes down the pike. My column is going to be much different - it is going to try to represent the outlook of the majority of Americans who want a change - not the cloistered Punditburo that thinks outsourcing, stagnant wages and a war on the middle class is acceptable.
You can read the full column here - and if you want to see my weekly column in your local newspaper, just use Media Matters' directory to contact your local editorial page editor and point them to my page over at Creators.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
You can subscribe to Sirota's e-mail newsletter by going to davidsirota.com and signing up in the lefthand corner. To find out more about Sirota, download his official biography or see his recent media appearances. You can e-mail him at sirota@credoaction.com.
The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
What a depressing situation, we got a Democratic congress ramrodding through legislation that would make any cheap labor free trading GOPer happy.
And where is the liberal blogosphere on this? why silent of course just like they are on numerous issues. They may as well be a DNC front for all the use they are for folks who work for a living.
The party of FDR is dead.
But won't be officially until its beaten by the GOP in '08. Which is a distinct possibility given how the Democrats are reneging on every promise they made. Its going to so sour people on the Democrats that no one with a brain will vote for Democrats again.
Perhaps after the Democrats are smashed in '08 we can then build a new party to represent the American people.
I've voted democratic in every election since Reagan's second term. I'm not a happy camper with our current Congress. As someone else said, they might as well be republicans.
If the Dems are smashed in 2008, there won't be any new political parties, the Bushiato OILigarchy will do away with all of them, and establish a monarchy.
Along those lines, I received a "poll" from the Dems that was actually a dun for money for the DNC.
I filled out their poll, and then put a big zero in the space for the donation.
I told them that I didn't want my money to go to candidates that weren't of my choosing.
I will contribute directly to the candidates of my choice. I will not send money to nor vote for candidates not of my choice, even if I have to write in a name, and it won't be Hillary!
It's time to fight back, and retake the Dems!
Butte
At the rate the Democrats are alienating independents and the working class they are going to lose in '08 big time. The thing Democrats won in '06 because they ran on anti-corruption, anti-Iraq and pro-labor platform which attracted many independents. Even then it was by razor thin margins in most cases.
However once in power the Democrats have become indistinguishable from Republicans on policy. Reid and Pelosi are busy funding Bush's war, pushing a new NAFTA, opening the floodgates for H1-B and L-1 and even H-2 visa workers.
Its like watching Republicans operate.
This doesn't go over well with independents or Democrats for that matter. Its a great way to depress voter turnout, after all who wants to vote for more of the same shit? and thats a electoral disaster for the Democrats given that they need a very good turn out to win in contested states. Look at Tester vs. Burns and Webb vs Allen.
And reforming the Democratic party? thats a nice objective but its not happening. There is no movement to primary Reid and Pelosi or any other sell-out. There is only placid exceptance of the status-quo and mindless cheerleading by many democrats especially in the blogosphere/netroots.
With that sort of attitude the Democrats are destined for the trash-heap of political parties.
"Look at Tester vs. Burns and Webb vs Allen." - waltc
I won't be surprised if George Allen runs again in 2012 and kicks Webb back out as the "macacca" mess will be totally irrelevant by then. Northern VA and Hampton Roads and Richmond are filled with loads of Democratic voters who are more than pissed off and are actually expressing their outrage by saying stuff like "I'd rather not waste another hour of my work time just to pick between the two evils at a voting booth !"
I hate to say this again but there's no fucking use in trying to repair the Democratic Party especially after the anti-moveon.org vote has proven. Just last year, the voters hired Democrats (Casey, Webb, McCaskill, Klobuchar, Tester) who ran phoney "populist" campaigns ala Bill Clinton only to fucking betray us once in office as the vote has shown. If "populist" Democrats such as these fools can happily betray their constituents just like the GOP has been doing, they are NOT populist when they openly show their bias against a people's group by censuring them for no reason. The only pro-populist candidate who ran last year and kept his promise was Bernard Sanders and he always has and continues to make no bones about his being independent despite the odds. Mr. Sirota, when will you STOP supporting the Democratic Party and start moving INDEPENDENT ? If you don't think these same Democrats will BETRAY us like this again, you must be NUTS !!! Please show some more courage and give INDEPENDENT candidates all over this country a show. It's bad enough that both parties are FORCING independents off the ballots through frivolous lawsuits just like the one against Ralph Nader in 2004 and keeping them off the news until voters find their names at the booth !
P.S. : I can now see even more why PANSY-FACE Leahy was so fucking silent when Cheney told him to GO FUCK HIMSELF and yet like an abused spouse Leahy bites the hand that feeds. Also, what the fuck is Dorgan doing criticizing moveon.org ?!?!? And if he's a fucking populist, why the fuck did he vote for the war in the first place and keep at it ?!?!? I mean Byron's great when it comes to the economic front but if he REFUSES to stand up and end this war and support the pro-people groups who are fucking fed up with this war, Dorgan should get the FUCK out and let someone else replace him and even if it's a Republican in North Dakota, TOO FUCKING BAD !!!!
"If the Dems are smashed in 2008, there won't be any new political parties, the Bushiato OILigarchy will do away with all of them, and establish a monarchy." - Butte
Pffff !!! LOL !!! LOL !!! The OILigarchy consists of members of both parties already ! When FDR signed the deal to OVERTAX Cannibis, the BIG Oil, Chemical, Coal, Cotton, etc ... lobbyist written deal, the OILigarchy only got bigger. The party of FDR went downhill from there though it wasn't noticeable until RAYGUN drubbed Carter in 1980 and FUCKED America. It doesn't matter if this country is a monarchy or duopoly. There's no FUCKING democracy in America. Hiring "populist" Democrats who promise economic reform is just as great an idea as hiring "populist" Republicans who promise social reform. Jesse Ventura was absolutely correct when he attacked the media by pointing out that the U.S. is no different than Saddham Hussein's Iraq. In most Congressional/Senate districts election after election, there is virtually no competition. Even when there appears to be, it all boils down to picking between two evils, both of whom are cosmetically different but otherwise the same. Democrats and Republicans have been crushing 3rd parties especially in 2004 as the lawyers for the Democratic Party were hired to do everything to get Nader off the ballot state after state instead of using their lawyers to clamp down on voter fraud ! The only way to reform the Democratic Party is to vote them all out and give 3rd parties an ULTRACLEAN ULTRAFRESH start !
And speaking of NAFTA,
Canada: Losing Water Through NAFTA
by Stephen Leahy
Does anyone really undersand the real pros and cons of these trade agreements? i Know even though I have a degree in finance and economics, I don't. And I doubt if many of those in congress do. The obvious problem is it's a chickcan and the egg problem. These reforms we want built into the trade agreements are self defeating for emerging economies. The only comparative advantage they have to attract industry is the exploitation of their labor force. We are tilting at windmills to expect them to accept our political will to abide by the rules we are forcing on them. Therefore the whole thing is a ruse to fool the American public into thinking we are getting a level playing field by making them play by our rules. It's all BS because they can't. If you want to see a viable alternative to this insanity read Parity Democracy, how to level the world economic playing field available online. Don't be taken in by this farce. The whole thing is to open up markets for our corporations. Neither party can change this because they don't know how. Parity Democracy is a way to change the whole inescaple stacked deck.
"Does anyone really undersand the real pros and cons of these trade agreements? ... I doubt if many of those in congress do." -ewode
It's not that people in Congress don't understand. It's just that they REFUSE to even read or even think about the laws that they are ready to pass. They won't read the fucking pacts, pay attention to the details that could potentially DAMAGE the working/middle/poor class even further, or even put a real debate on them. In Politics 101 back in college, I was taught that the staffers and not the politicians do all the fucking writing and even thinking for them. We taxpayers give the motherfucking politicians our fucking money to do NOTHING other than capitulating to the fucking White House and lobbyists ! All the fuckers on Capitol Hill want is money money money and as long as they accept the motherfucking bribes from White House, K Street, Zionists, etc ... while all we can do is vote at best, the pols will continue to strongly believe that they have no obligation to us voters and owe us NOTHING in return for the votes we give these motherfuckers !
I can't disagree with anything F. Johnson said above, but he missed my above point that probably could have been stated better. My point is, this whole controversy is a moot point, because the conditions put in these pacts are just a ruse to fool the American people into getting behind these new trade pacts. It is the ends justifies the means argument. It is a conspiracy of both parties, because both parties believe it is in the best interests of America to open these markets to free trade. Historically, American foreign policy has been chiefly crafted by the motivation of bringing trade benefits to the United States. And that's been supported by both parties. That's why I tongue in cheek said I would like to know whether there are real benefits and what they are. After all, there has been benefits of free trade between the states. Why not between all countries. I believe Parity Economics as outlined in my book Parity Democracy sold online is a better way to go because the current economic paradigm needs fixing. The current model called comparative advantage is a fallacious outdated concept.
Any deal that is written by corporatists for their sole benefits with no regards for the general public aren't free. Trade can be good but the current "free" trade deals are neither free nor are they really much about trade once you read the details where the devil lies. In fact, as Ron Paul himself a libertarian Republican always says, "They're nothing but foreign briberies." The truth about these pacts is there is nothing whatsoever to either stop or hold accountable the vested business interests from carrying on their evil ways. Any law that holds no accountability for its violation is NULL and VOID.
Lest anyone think this analysis is the delusion of a labor advocate, see (pp 88-89):
"Business Week," July 2, 2007, Richard S. Dunham: "Washington's Oddest Tag Team: How the Treasury Secretary [Paulson] and a powerful Democrat [Rangel] are cutting deals [Panama, Peru] crucial to business"
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