Tuesday Voice: The selling of America

The Trans-Pacific Partnership

By Ed Rogers

For too long the American people have gotten the short end of the stick. We have stood by as factory after factory closed their doors. We have watched as gas prices climb for no good reason. We have allowed corporations to run roughshod over our rights as citizens. They take the land for their benefit and when they have finished with it, they walk away. Left behind is a toxic wasteland. Few lawsuits have succeeded in the full cleanup of the toxicants. On the beaches along the Gulf Coast, tar balls still wash ashore. On the floor of the Gulf, there is a river of oil, which the oil companies tell us a micro-organism is supposed to be eating?
    We have sat in front of our television sets as the Supreme Court stopped interpreting the law and began to make their own laws. If corporations have the same rights as a citizen of the United States, then why do we as citizens not have the same protections as the corporations?

Free Trade Agreements: It started with NAFTA, which was a Republican plan put forth and supported by large corporations. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law. The bill passed, 234 – 200; 156 democrats, 43 Republicans, and 1 Independent voted no. Less than half of the president’s own party supported the bill. This was the start of the rush to the bottom. The ink wasn’t dry before the factory doors began to close and what had been viewed as the world’s industrial giant became a memory.
    The Economic Policy Institute did a study, which found that sixty-one per-cent of the jobs lost to Mexico because of NAFTA were relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs. Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and California took the hardest hit.
    CAFTA was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The vote took place in the middle of the night and passed by one vote. The free trade agreement with Central America was the extending of NAFTA to the other countries to the south. Nothing in the bill added any safeguards for the workers in the United States. It only opened up more countries for the corporations to rape.
    We have trade agreements with China and South Korea that have created a hole we may never climb out of. Borrowing money isn’t a big deal, as long as they take payment in goods. The problem is we import far more from these two counties than we export. Talk about the playing field not being level; we are pushing up the hill while they are charging down. The terrible thing about all this is: we built the damn hill. Maybe not we, but the corporations, were given free range to cut any deal they want. None of those deals included American workers.
    Each time Congress approved and the president signed these bills, they said it would create jobs, but each time more factories closed and moved overseas. The true story about our exports is we ship parts out to be assembled in other countries and call that exports and when they are shipped back to us they are imports. In fact, the only product that has been exported is the assembling jobs.
    Because of trade laws, which mostly benefit the emerging Nations and the corporations doing business in those countries, the American people have no recourse. Congress is barred, under these agreements, from passing any law that would offer us protection. We’ve been sued for laws that are already on our books. The World Trade Organization—run by corporations—has its own court, made up of three international lawyers. They are corporate lawyers from around the world. At no given time do we have more than one judge among them. They make rulings against us for even trying to control health and safety issues. Any time we are sued, the taxpayer picks up the tab. The US loses 9 out of 10 cases in these courts. This places our food, clothes, pet food, automobiles, and any product shipped from our so-called trading partners outside of our laws.

Now waiting in the wings is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We were tied to the post and shot, and now here’s the bullet to the head. This is the monster of all deals. It is such a giveaway that the meetings are being held behind closed doors. Now Obama wants to fast-track the trade deal, even though no one has any idea what damage it will do to the American worker.
    By fast-tracking there can be no debate, no changes, and no time to read the bill. It calls for a straight up-or-down vote. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. Write your representative and ask him to stand up. If this craziness isn’t stopped we will become a Nation of Corporations, owned body and soul. They will make our laws, and they will decide what is good for us. We’ll have no say in the matter. We will become a world ruled by three Judges who are owned by the corporations. The clock is ticking. Act now!
_______________
Copyright © 2013 by Ed Rogers

Comment box is located below