Free trade bubbles up in final US election debate

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:42:21 GMT
DPA

Washington - US presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain clashed on free trade and its value to a sputtering US economy during their last television debate of the election campaign. Republican nominee McCain said Wednesday that opening up trade would foster millions of jobs in the United States but acknowledged that re-education programmes for US workers losing their jobs would have to be improved. He called for an end to tariffs on sugar cane-based ethanol from Brazil to help the United States diversify its energy sources.

Democratic rival Obama said he was a free-trade supporter but held US workers' interests at heart. He touted a pending deal with South Korea, which would allow struggling US automakers sell more of their goods on the Asian market.

~snip~
McCain focused on the Colombian free-trade agreement pending before Congress, calling it a "no-brainer" that would help create jobs in the United States and aid a key Latin American ally in its fight against drug trafficking.

~snip~
Obama countered that all trade deals had to include protections for US workers, for the environment and for the "human rights" of labour union members who have been targeted for assassination in Colombia.




Read more: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/237269,free-trade-bubbles-up-in-final-us-election-debate.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. The Killings Go On: Targeting Unions in Colombia

October 15, 2008

The Killings Go On
Targeting Unions in Colombia
By CONN HALLINAN

There are lots of places in the world where you need to watch your step. You don’t want to be a Sunni in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad (or vice versa). It’s probably not smart to speak Tamal in southern Sri Lanka. You might want to keep being a Muslim under wraps in parts of Mindanao. But most of all you don’t want to be a trade unionist in the U.S.’s one remaining ally in South America, Colombia.

“Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist,” says Jeremy Dear, chair of the British trade union organization, Justice For Colombia (JFC), “In fact, more trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia during Uribe’s presidency than in the rest of the world over the same period.”

In April, the Colombian Trade Union Confederation reported that the first part of 2008 saw a 77 percent increase in the murder of trade unionists.

One of the latest victims was Luis Mayusa Prada, a union leader from Saravena. On Aug. 8, two men pumped him full of bullets—17 to be exact. Prada was the third member of his family to be assassinated by right-wing paramilitaries. His sister Carmen Mayusa, a nurse and leader of the National Assn. Of Hospital and Clinic Workers, is on the run from death threats.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan10152008.html

[Stuckinthebush]

6. Did you notice McCain rolling his eyes when Obama mentioned this?

McCain is an ass.

[saigon68]

12. He is more than an ASS

[ixion]

2. McNeocon: (paraphrase) "I support the War on Drugs and the War on Terror"

both of which need to be terminated with extreme prejudice, and a great reason in and of itself to not vote for grampa poo pants.

[pipoman]

3. Both parties have eqaul responsibility

for the implementation of trade agreements which have hurt US blue collar workers and farmers. Free trade with 3rd world countries with no agreement allowing sanctions or withdrawal if the member countries do not bring reasonable worker wages, benefits, and protections into effect just insures none of these things will happen and US workers will either sink to the level of their foreign competition or cease to exist. My anger over these issues is mainly with Democrats as we are supposed to be the party of labor yet our leaders have sold our jobs south and east with no protection for our workers or farmers. Obama says he will protect US workers but still spouts the bullshit line about 'US workers can compete with workers anywhere. They are as productive as any workers in the world', which translates to US workers will work more hours for less money and less benefits to compete with workers in other nations who work more hours for pennies on the US dollar. It is time to begin pressuring these other nations to compete and bring their workers standard of living up or impose tariffs or import restrictions on their products, playing footsy with these countries isn't going to help their workers or ours.

[Nevernose]

5. NAFTA looked good on paper

"A rising tide lifts all boats" and all that. Thomas Friedman is a truly gifted salesman -- he could sell space heaters in Guyana and then have them ask for electric blankets, and many of those free-traders are like that. I see why people fall for that shit. I fell for NAFTA myself when it first came up in the early 90s, a lot of people did. Greg Palast set me straight, thank God. I remember reading The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and thinking, "Maybe those people in Seattle weren't a bunch of loonies; maybe I should have been there with them."

[Zhade]

14. Uh, not with the stripped-out worker and human rights protections it didn't!

There was absolutely no reason to support that version, especially after bill clinton campaigned on keeping them in and then signed it after his DEMOCRATIC Congress removed them.

It remains a shameful part of the Dem's complicity in this economic catastrophe.

[Nevernose]

18. In hindsight, you're absolutely correct

I wish we'd had the current Internet back then -- this cheap little electric box we've all got is really changing the game.

I can see how Republicans get snookered, though. Limited information sources, not many dissenting viewpoints to listen to, a politician they trust saying one thing, a healthy dose of naivete...

I wish I'd had your foresight.

[pipoman]

15. Not to me it didn't,

I couldn't see any reason for US manufacturers to stay in the US, none. Massive restrictions and taxes on them in the US and no consequences for violating these restrictions if they moved to one of these 3rd world countries with no (or damned few) environmental or human rights restrictions. Expecting demonstrably corrupt governments to do the right thing and improve working conditions and place environmental protections similar to ours with no consequences for not doing these things was just stupid, IMHO.

I knew we were in trouble when NAFTA was being 'fast tracked' with overwelming support from Dems and Pugs alike. Dems and Pugs appearances together, arm in arm, announcing how wonderful free trade is and how 'US workers are as productive as any workers in the world'.

[Nevernose]

19. I bought it hook, line, and sinker.

At least for a few years. Even after I figured out it was bad, it took a few years more for someone to be able to articulate it for me, to lay out the numbers, to demonstrate that it was just as harmful to Mexican workers as it was to American workers. There weren't as many alternative sources of information in the 90s, and, contrary to Churchill's theory, the older I get the more liberal I get. I was young and ignorant. Sue me.

[pipoman]

20. Hey, it's good to hear you are not too

stubborn to change your mind.! :toast:

[ronnie624]

10. We have more in common with the working class of Latin America

than we do with the corporatist elites in Washington. Genuine reform movements are occurring there in a big way. We would be much better off organizing with them for reform on a global scale.

"Pressuring" other countries to bow to our will is paternalistic and insulting to the people there. The pressure needs to be applied to our own leaders.

[amandabeech]

16. Thanks for the great post!

"Bullshit" is right, and this is one reason why I am lukewarm about Obama even though I will be voting for him in November.

[pipoman]

22. Yep,

the alternative to Obama is just as bought/brain washed (I don't know which Obama is) in favor of 'free trade'. If a major contender were against free trade as it is currently defined in favor of bringing human rights, wage parity and environmental protection to these other countries in exchange for free trade, that candidate would get my vote regardless of party. As it is Obama is the best choice IMO...it will still be a 'hold my nose moment'.

[dipsydoodle]

4. allow struggling US automakers

sell more of their goods on the Asian market ? He's got to be joking. The USA, and Europe come to that, could never match Asia's low production costs without reducing labour costs down to subsistence levels.

[Trillo]

11. or subsidies.

corporate welfare seems the direction of the past, will it be of the future as well?

I got a huge laugh at McCain's statement that at 35%, corporations in the U.S. have the highest taxation. Oops, guess "he forgot" about all those subsidies leading some of the largest corporations, I believe in 3 of 5 years, to negative income taxes.

[amandabeech]

17. What galaxy was he traversing when he said this?

Perhaps the Enterprise should be dispatched to go out there and bring the big O and his warmed-over Clintonist economic team back to reality.

I cannot believe that he could possibly say this stuff with a straight face.

Or maybe I can.

[sasquatch]

7. Free trade is a crock of shit for the corpratist to use modern day slavery

[blue97keet]

8. Connection between "free trade" and banking crisis

Both candidates should be asked, for example, how China can be the capital of manufacturing and the U.S. the capital of consumption and debt, and how the whole thing can function as a system without something plugging up or exploding - as in our current banking and leveraging and predatory lending meltdown?

"Free trade" is faith based nuclear engineering - no redundancy, no containment needed: the invisible hand of thermodynamics will correct everything in the end - straight to China.

McCain : hard core idealogical free-trader.
Obama : "lipstick-on-a-pig" free-trader.

[Peace Patriot]

9. I'm glad to see the slaughter of union leaders in Colombia go "mainstream" in a presidential debate.

Long time coming.

It's been broiling beneath the surface of U.S. consciousness, unable to break ground, because the Corpo/fascists who control the 'news' media have largely black-holed the issue. And it is just the tip of the iceberg of Colombian issues. Colombia is arguably one of the worst governments on earth, certainly in the western hemisphere, with only the Bush regime as its rival for corruption--and for murder, torture, lawlessness and mayhem. Its 'president' (president of those not too fearful to vote)--Bush's pal, Alvaro Uribe--is former Medellin Cartel. Sixty of his political cohorts are being investigated, prosecuted or are in jail, for connections to rightwing death squads or drug trafficking. The Colombian military, fattened with $6 BILLION in U.S. aid--the biggest U.S. military aid package outside of Israel--is totally out of control. Over forty union leaders have been murdered this year alone--and many hundreds over the last half decade. Amnesty International attributes 92% of these murders to the Colombian military (about half) and to their closely associated paramilitary death squads. Hundreds of others have been killed as well--community organizers, human rights workers, peaceful protestors, political leftists, journalists, small peasant farmers. Tens of thousands of small peasant farmers have been displaced--some killed, many fleeing across the borders into Venezuela and Ecuador. They are largely fleeing from the Colombian military and its death squads, as well as from U.S. Big Chem toxic pesticide spraying, supposedly to eradicate coca leaf plants, but really to eradicate small farmers, and clear the land for major drug lords and for Monsanto & co.

And THIS is the U.S. government's only friend in South America?! Good God!

Well, I guess there's Peru--where Bush's other pal, Alan Garcia (20% approval rating, like Bush), just fired his entire cabinet, trying to survive a big oil corruption scandal. The infamous Bush/Peru "free trade" deal--touted by the Democratic leaders here, for including labor protections, as it turns out, has labor protections only on paper. There have been continual, huge labor protests against it, precisely because it has NOT benefited labor. And the price Peru is paying--in yet more U.S. "war on drugs" fascism, militarization and poisoning of small farmers--is very great, indeed. Peru will likely oust Garcia, and scuttle the "free trade" deal, in the next election cycle, when Peru goes leftist, like the rest of South America. Peru at least still has viable democratic institutions, possibly capable of reform. Colombia does not. Colombia could well suffer a military coup and lose every last vestige of democracy--including the courts and prosecutors who are bravely trying to hold Uribe and the military accountable for their massive crimes, with no help from the Bushwhacks. The Bush Junta just extradited a group of death squad witnesses--needed in Colombia for death squad investigations--for prosecution here on mere drug trafficking. It is a cover up.

As I said, the murders of union leaders is just one aspect of the vast corruption in Colombia, tied to the vast corruption here. When Chiquita execs got sued for their payments to death squads in Colombia, to take care of their "labor problem," the Bush Junta intervened, and let them off the hook with a minor fine. Colombia is "ground zero" for Bushite corruption in this hemisphere.

I'm glad to see Obama getting smart about this--like the labor Democrats in Congress, who have blocked the Colombia/U.S. "free trade" deal--just about the only good thing this so-called Democratic Congress has done. (Democratic Congress = 10% approval rating--worse than Bush!). But I hope to God that he won't settle for PAPERING OVER this vast, ugly problem. What I think needs to happen is, not only scuttling of any "free trade" deal with Colombia, but withdrawal of all military aid from Colombia, and let South Americans deal with this problem themselves. This humongous military aid package is meddling. It is classic bad--evil!--U.S./Latin American policy. It funds the worst elements in Colombian society.

There are plenty of strong democracies all over the continent--countries with transparent elections, and good, social justice leaders--who have proven capable of fending off a Bush-instigated war between Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela this year, of joining forces to resist Bushite meddling in Bolivia, of repelling Bush-backed coup attempts, assassination plots and destabilization activities in several countries, and who are working, through UNASUR, toward economic/political integration. Let them deal with this errant member, Colombia, and its sister in corruption, Peru. The biggest threat to peace in South America is the U.S.-funded Colombian military! The answer is to get the fuck out of Colombia, and bring our tax dollars home, and put them to work for us, here. Why are we funding the Colombian military, when the flood of cocaine on our streets never ends? Why? It is anti-democratic meddling! And its evil fruits are the chainsawed body parts of union leaders found in mass graves, and the dead children with throats slit because their parents were suspected of being leftists, and the tens of thousands of pesticide-sprayed, displaced small farmers, and the rampant and putrid injustice everywhere you look in Colombia.

That is the fruit of our meddling! End it!

We have to be content, for the moment, with small scraps from the Corpo/fascist establishment--that our Democratic candidate can at least mention the "tip of the iceberg" in Colombia. WaPo did an expose of the death squads a couple of weeks ago--for reasons unknown (truth is not their strong suit)--so now it's okay. But, jeez, contemplating "free trade" with Colombia if they would just stop slaughtering union leaders, is mind-bogglingly inadequate, for a Democrat--or any U.S. politician. The much deeper problems--U.S. meddling, U.S. "war on drugs" corruption, U.S. war profiteer corruption, U.S. arms trafficking, and Bush Cartel drug connections--remain under the surface, and highly dangerous subjects, that could get Obama killed or Diebolded, and that IS the problem. The problem is HERE. The problem would be solved there, if it is solved here. That is what Obama cannot say. He speaks 1% of the truth, and 99% of the truth goes unsaid--because, really, "free speech" died here some time ago--at least for U.S. politicians. The rest of us can rant all we want, and nothing much changes, in our impervious political establishment, which is beholden to Diebold & brethren, and their Bushwhack funders, and not to us.

[Zhade]

13. Wow, Obama mentioned Colombia? Right on!

NT!

[Judi Lynn]

21. New story on Bush's Colombian puppet: Colombia's Uribe Said To Hinder Militia Probes

Colombia's Uribe Said To Hinder Militia Probes
Rights Group Cites Legislative, Other Moves
By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 17, 2008; A22

BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 16 -- Far from pressing to uncover the truth, President Álvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed government has hindered investigations into links between paramilitary groups and the country's political establishment, a leading human rights group said in a report released Thursday.

Human Rights Watch, which has documented ties between Colombia's army and paramilitary death squads since the 1980s, said in a 140-page report that officials have made important strides in investigating the illegal, anti-guerrilla paramilitary groups that terrorized this country until they were demobilized in 2006.

But the report accused Uribe of trying to obstruct the probes, instead of supporting them as he claims in his frequent trips to Washington. It also highlighted how Uribe and his aides have tried to tarnish the Supreme Court, which is carrying out an assertive probe that has already found ties between dozens of members of Congress and paramilitary groups.

"President Uribe's and his cabinet members' repeated verbal attacks, bizarre public accusations and personal phone calls to members of the court create an environment of intimidation," the report said.

"The Uribe administration has often spoken about the importance of the truth," it added. "However, at the same time, it has repeatedly taken steps that risk undermining the investigations."

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/16/AR2008101603613.html?nav=rss_world/southamerica

(Also posted as a thread)

[Judi Lynn]

23. Sorrow upon sorrow: World crisis may prompt Colombia aid cuts-US envoy

World crisis may prompt Colombia aid cuts-US envoy
Fri Oct 17, 2008 10:36pm BST
By Patrick Markey

BOGOTA, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The global financial crisis will pressure U.S. lawmakers to cut a multibillion-dollar Colombian aid package that has helped the government counter Marxist rebels, the U.S. ambassador to Bogota said on Friday.

The envoy's remarks were the first signal of how the worldwide credit turmoil could impact the $600 million a year Colombia receives from Washington to fight FARC guerrillas and attack the cocaine trade that helps fuel the conflict.

Violence has ebbed and foreign investment has flooded in as guerrillas are battered by military assaults. U.S. lawmakers have already trimmed some aid and Democrats controlling the U.S. Congress now want more focus on economic development.

"The U.S. Congress wants to reduce your aid. The pressure from the financial and economic crisis will increase that demand," U.S. envoy William Brownfield said in Bogota. "I don't see an elimination of our aid, but a gradual reduction."

More:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUKN17459753._CH_.2420?rpc=401&

http://i263.photobucket.com.nyud.net:8090/albums/ii124/karma1193/Sorry/Sorry1.gif
:sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

24. Colombian Indians push anti-government protests

updated 2 hours, 38 minutes ago
Colombian Indians push anti-government protests

POPAYAN, Colombia (CNN) -- Thousands of Colombian Indians plan to protest government policies on Tuesday in the country's second-largest city, marking more than a week of demonstrations against the nation's free-market economic policies.

Indian leaders in the mountains of southwest Colombia announced during the weekend they were gathering as many as 20,000 protesters and would begin to march Tuesday on the city of Cali, an industrial and agricultural hub.

At least two Indians have been killed and more than 80 have been injured in the protests, which began October 10 and have included a blockade of the Pan-American highway. The government says as many as 70 security force members, mainly riot police, have also been injured.

During the past week, protesters throwing rocks and firing sling shots, catapults and Molotov cocktails, have clashed with riot police, who fought back with tear gas, rocks and batons.

The Indians also say the security forces have been shooting at them with rifles and canisters packed with shrapnel. President Alvaro Uribe has denied that police and army forces have been using lethal force against demonstrators, but medics say they have treated scores of Indians injured by bullets and shrapnel.

The protesters allege one of their own, 27-year-old Taurino Ramos, was fatally shot in the head by police. The police have made no official comment.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/10/20/colombia.protests/index.html