A must-read column by Thom Hartmann

[Cyrano]

There's nothing incompetent about Bush & Co. Virtually everything they've done has been for the further enrichment and power of themselves and others of their ilk worldwide. As for the rest of us? We're nothing but cannon fodder, serfs, and tools to be used to further their ends. Thom Hartmann's full article can be found at this link and excerpts follow.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0227-20.htm

(excerpts)
The Dubai Ports World deal is waking Americans up to a painful reality: So-called "conservatives" and "flat world" globalists have bankrupted our nation for their own bag of silver, and in the process are selling off America.

(snip)

The old concept was that if there was a dollar's worth of labor in a pair of shoes made in the USA, and somebody wanted to import shoes from China where there may only be ten cents worth of labor in those shoes, we'd level the playing field for labor by putting a 90-cent import tariff on each pair of shoes. Companies could choose to make their products here or overseas, but the ultimate cost of labor would be the same.

Then came the flat-worlders, led by misguided true believers and promoted by multinational corporations. Do away with those tariffs, they said, because they "restrain trade." Let everything in, and tax nothing. The result has been an explosion of cheap goods coming into our nation, and the loss of millions of good manufacturing jobs and thousands of manufacturing companies. Entire industry sectors have been wiped out.

These policies have kneecapped the American middle class. Our nation's largest employer has gone from being the unionized General Motors to the poverty-wages Wal-Mart.

(snip)

Back in the pre-Reagan days, American companies made profits that were distributed among Americans. They used their profits to build more factories, or diversify into other businesses. The profits stayed in America.

(snip)

Foreign companies are buying up our water systems, our power generating systems, our mines, and our few remaining factories. All because "flat world" so-called "free trade" policies have turned us from a nation of wealthy producers into a nation of indebted consumers, leaving the world awash in dollars that are most easily used to buy off big chunks of America.

(snip)

Ultimately, it's not about security -- it's about money. In the multinational corporatocracy's "flat world," money trumps the national good, community concerns, labor interests, and the environment. NAFTA, CAFTA, and WTO tribunals can - and regularly do - strike down local and national laws. Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" are replaced by Antonin Scalia's "Rights of Corporate Persons."

[glitch]

1. Recommended, because more people need to get this.

"There's nothing incompetent about Bush & Co." actually, not completely true. If they were more competent we wouldn't know what they were doing until after they were gone.

[marmar]

2. Excellent...

Thom Hartmann is a good egg. :)

[Pharaoh]

3. Great article

K&R

[Blue Belle]

4. Kicked!

:)

[Amaryllis]

5. Thom is brilliant. How does he find time to write and do 6 hours a day of

talk radio?

[shireen]

12. i once asked him if he ever sleeps....

he said, not much!

[CrispyQ]

6. Thom rocks!

This is an excellent article! I'm printing it out to send to my rw mother.

[RufusEarl]

7. Totally agree!

but if all things mentioned in this article were corrected tomorrow, this country would still be in deep shit because of other policies by this admin. But it would be a start.

[Cyrano]

8. Please keep this kicked so as many as possible can see the article.

[underpants]

9. WOW!

just WOW

[confuddled]

10. Greedy and wily

He is neither stupid nor crazy,and every time we call him one or the other we are exculpating him - as in "not guilty by reason of insanity". I do believe he meets DSM criteria for at least one psychiatric diagnosis of the character disorder variety, but he is not "crazy"/stupid. In my opinion, he is fully responsible for all of his behavior and would-be incompetence.

Thanks for posting this.

[shireen]

11. EMAIL THIS ARTICLE TO YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS! nt

Maybe Cynthia McKinney will read this on the floor, and hopefully not get censured for it, as she did the last time she read one of Thom's articles!

[Elwood P Dowd]

13. Incredible article!

Every citizen needs to read this. He did fail to mention all the service, support, and other spin-off jobs lost to these fake free trade deals, along with the billions spent in social costs.

[Armstead]

14. kick

[bonito]

15. I remember wallmart's logo made in USA

This explains it thanks.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

16. Protectionism doesn't work

It never has. One of the following things happen. Usually ALL of them do:

1] Other countries put on their own retaliatory punitive tariffs on US made goods. We lose more jobs than we gain. See the Smoot-Hawley tariff act, which caused much of the Great Depression.

2] Consumers, dissatisfied with the high price of goods in their home country, start patronizing smugglers. Entire industries of corruption are created. India in the '60s and '70s is a classic example of this.

3] Big political fights break out over what industries should be "protected". It often ends up having nothing to do with protecting actual jobs, and everything to do with protecting the interests of rich oligarchs. The US farm industry (where most agricultural subsidies go to billion dollar corporations) is an example of this.

4] Consumers end up paying much more for goods than they would otherwise, and end up being poorer for it.

- - -

That said, here are some things that SHOULD be done:

1] Putting more protections for environment, basic labor rights, and some form of minimum wage into all our trade agreements.

2] Paying for education, especially education in the sciences and businesses, to enable Americans to land the higher value added (i.e. naturally higher paying) jobs in a global economy.

3] Fully backing international birth control. No matter how you divide the pie, everyone will get poorer if we keep having to divide the planet into more and more pieces.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

17. NAFTA will kill this Country deader than

all out nuclear war ever would. It's the Middle Class that binds this country together, without it, a free America is in the history books. A thing to be remembered and reflected upon, for what might have been. And for what the few full of greed can wreak upon a Nation.
kill NAFTA,CAFTA,FREE TRADE,GLOBALISM,PNAC.

[novak goes postal]

18. Recommended more people need to hear this thread.......

Great message from Thom Hartman.......Thanks Thom

[Armstead]

19. This is the realky scary part....

The percentages of foreign ownership of vartious industries from that article:

Sound recording industries - 97%
· Commodity contracts dealing and brokerage - 79%
· Motion picture and sound recording industries - 75%
· Metal ore mining - 65%
· Motion picture and video industries - 64%
· Wineries and distilleries - 64%
· Database, directory, and other publishers - 63%
· Book publishers - 63%
· Cement, concrete, lime, and gypsum product - 62%
· Engine, turbine and power transmission equipment - 57%
· Rubber product - 53%
· Nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing - 53%
· Plastics and rubber products manufacturing - 52%
· Plastics product - 51%
· Other insurance related activities - 51%
· Boiler, tank, and shipping container - 50%
· Glass and glass product - 48%
· Coal mining - 48%

MORE

[progressoid]

25. Yep - even the profits from the things we produce leave our country

[earth mom]

20. Extremely Important Read-Recommended! nt

[converted_democrat]

21. Thom is such a good writer.. I've just started to read his books, and this

guy is amazing..

[Nikki Stone 1]

22. Yes, yes yes yes yes

"So-called "conservatives" and "flat world" globalists have bankrupted our nation for their own bag of silver, and in the process are selling off America. "

YES

[Neil Lisst]

23. another good one from Thom n/t

[Nikki Stone 1]

24. Recommended and sent to friends

This is exactly what is happening. And it explains New Orleans and Katrina. The authorities are no longer representative governments. They are multinational corporations and we have been "Third Worldized". How long til the IMF has to lend the US money?

[BrklynLiberal]

26. Thom Hartmann is a superb writer.

[RJRoss]

27. I listen

to Thom almost every day on my local progressive station. It's amazing how often he has the guy from the Ayn Rand Institute on to debate unfettered vs. regulated capitalism, and remains calm and respectful the whole time. And he's ALWAYS harping on the evils of free trade and globalization.

After I read it, I bought his book "The Last Rays of Ancient Sunlight" for my sister-in-law. Thom Hartmann is (dare I say) a visionary, a true American hero who most Americans have never heard of.

[Disturbed]

28. Multi-Natl Corps do not have any alliegence to any nation.

The Neo Fascists in power over America are aiding the Multi-Natls in their private Empire builing. America is only a myth, a concept, territory. The RW Agenda has been to destroy the American Middle Class.

"Corporations and their CEOs are America's new feudal lords, and the new conservatives are their obliging servants and mouthpieces. The conservative mantra is: "Less government!" But the dirty little secret of the new conservatives is that just as nature abhors a vacuum, so also do politics and power. Every time government of, by, and for We, the People is pushed out of administering some part of this nation's vast commons, corporations step in. And by swamping the United States of America in debt with so-called "tax cuts," they seek to force an increasingly desperate government to cede more and more of our commons to their corporate rule." T. Hartman

The Right Wing Agenda

Abolish

Social Security
Medicare
Employer supplied health insurance
Unemployment Benefits
Welfare
Abortion Rights
Collective Bargaining
EPA
Public Education
Public Housing
IRS

[Mythsaje]

29. Thom's the best...

He hits it square on the head every damn time.