Will the free traders wake up when US citizens start dying by the thousands?

[Elwood P Dowd]

"It's only a few dogs and cats -- don't worry about it". That's what someone said to me this afternoon. So what will it take to wake up these bastards and stop this madness? There are even some DUers who will defend these fake free trade deals, and it matters not to them how many jobs we lose or how many people or animals die as a result.

Bernie Sanders told Thom Hartmann today that future fake free trade deals were all but dead with this congress. Let's fucking hope that's the case. Let's also hope NAFTA, GATT, WTO, CAFTA, and the others are renegotiated. We need a REAL progressive Democrat elected in 2008 to save our ass. The DLC free trade crowd will never fix this problem.

[Critters2]

1. I am so completely blown away by this

and just keep trying to figure it out...a Canadian company with a plant in KANSAS bought WHEAT from CHINA?! And all I can think is :wtf:

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. It may be when they started buynig up our debt they made certain stipulations, such

as we have to buy their wheat.

[Critters2]

5. God damn!!!

What a f*cking mess! And so much of it to finance this illegal war.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Yep :^(

[A Simple Game]

16. Before they closed the place, I used to work for an American

subsidiary of a British company that was owned by a French company that was owned by an Italian family.

[Elwood P Dowd]

17. I use to sell a product made in the USA

by a USA owned company. Now the product is made in China, owned by Canadians, shipped to Canada by the Chinese, and distributed to us by Canadians. A zillion tons of fuel are used in the process. Compared to 25 years ago, the quality of the products sucks. The reliability sucks. The performance sucks. We are polluting the planet and filling up the landfills with electronic junk made in China. It's all disposable crap that you have to replace every two years.

[unlawflcombatnt]

32. Exactly

Not only are we losing jobs to "free" trade, the substitute products are garbage as well. Every time I buy an electric or electronic item in a store, I ask: "how long can do I have to bring it back and get a refund?" And over half of the items bought I end up returning. It's really a crap shoot as to whether it will even work the 1st time.

Consumers aren't saving any money on Chinese goods (or other foreign goods), given how fast they wear out or break. And non-American tools have ALWAYS been garbage, and still are. The only difference now is that it's almost impossible to find American-made tools, so you have to buy garbage-quality foreign tools.

[Elwood P Dowd]

33. I still own old Zenith radios from the 60s that work perfectly.

I've used the same Amana microwave for 25 years. This old stuff looks like a work of art inside compared to the crap coming from Mexico and China.

[karlrschneider]

34. 3 days ago I went looking for a new coffee maker.

We have family coming to visit and they only drink de-caf (bleah) so I wanted to be able to make that plus real coffee
at the same time.

I went to Wally World (please don't bitch at me, it's the only store and the only GROCERY store within 30 miles) All of
the dozen or so I looked at were from China. Grabbed a "Black and Decker" and took it to checkout. I said to the
lady "I hope this Chinese appliance works"

She said "Oh, NO! This is made in Massachusetts! See here it says Black and Decker, Boston, Massachusetts!"

I replied, "Lady, 95 percent of everything you sell in this store comes from China except for some of the groceries and a lot of them are from Mexico and South America"...then I turned the box over and showed her the "Made in China"
printing. I wish I'd had my camera...her expression was like that of a child caught with a hand in the cookie jar.
:eyes:

[Elwood P Dowd]

35. It will last a couple of years

Then take it to dumpster and buy another one. My little broiler oven died a few years ago. It worked great for about 15 years. Since then, I've gone through three new ones - Black and Decker, GE, and another one I can't remember. None lasted more than 18 months. Usually the heating element or the timer died. My old Oster blender has been working flawlessly since 1969. A friend bought a foreign-made blender off eBay, and it lasted about two months before the motor died.

[karlrschneider]

37. I'll be happy with 2 years. When I was in high school I had a part-time job

repairing electronic stuff...mostly high-end stereo equipment like McIntosh, Marantz, Scott, Sherwood and such. They didn't often break but they were REPAIRABLE when something went wrong. Not now. Most everything we buy is throwaway and what little is manufactured here is something to eat. :mad:

[Elwood P Dowd]

38. McIntosh, Marantz, Scott, Fisher, Sherwood, HK

You're talking about some great stuff that now brings a fortune. I sold my old McIntosh MR-74 tuner for $600.00 a few years ago. Now a mint one like mine brings over $1,000.00!!! Even old Scott and Fisher tube-type receivers bring decent money. Upgrade them with new caps, pots, resistors, and they will work for years.

[karlrschneider]

43. At one time or another I had a bunch of all those brands. I've regretted letting them

get away many times. All I have left is a pair of Bozak B300 speakers that have worked flawlessly for nearly 40 years!
:D

Does anyone still make tubes? I moved away to a new home years ago and left about 20 brand new KT88s. Yeah, I was a moran. ;-)

[Elwood P Dowd]

45. The Bozaks sound a little dated

and veiled compared to the best available today, but they are very well made. If you want something from the old days that still kicks ass, then look for various models of Altec and JBL horns. Be prepared to pay the price. Also, only listen to them with quality tubes.

There are dozens of companies making tube-type electronics, both in the USA and overseas. The tubes themselves are usually made in Russia or some other Eastern European country. Many are made in China, though most audiophiles shun those. NOS stock tubes from the 50s and 60s are highly collectible. Certain brands of Mullard, RCA, Western Electric, bring good money on eBay. The KT88S are fairly common, though I'm sure there are some worth money. Your 20 NOS KT88s might bring $500.00 or more today. Just depends on the brand and the age.

[mitchum]

57. Indeed. I have to buy a new electric alarm clock about every 2 months...

I look and look for ones not made in China, but to no avail. They are all Chinese junk. JUNK.

[arcane1]

60. I spent 8 years at a Japanese-owned container-ship company...

based in the U.S., that is making a killing off of crazy arrangements like these

needless to say, they love WalMart :evilfrown:

[jmowreader]

30. It's wheat gluten (seitan), not wheat

The Chinese have made seitan for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It was invented so Buddhists who don't eat meat would have a protein source. Anyway, they've made seitan (it's made by creating a dough from wheat flour, then washing the starch out of it) in China for a very long time and they're good at it. So obviously that's where you'd go to get it.

It's not made in the US because it's an industrial process and there's not enough demand for seitan here to justify building a factory. (Seitan is faux meat, and in America the leading faux meat is made from soybeans.) Better just to buy it from China, where huge automated factories make seitan continuously.

Now! In the next few days or weeks I expect to see something from China regarding an investigation, which will culminate in a show trial and executions, of the mechanism through which rat poison entered the foodchain. This shit's serious in China because, unlike in America, seitan is a popular food for people in China. I'm thinkin' that there was either a mixup at the seed plant that diverted pesticide-treated seed to a grain elevator that sells food grain, or there's a grain elevator who sells both seed grain and food grain and the operators fucked up when they pulled the order. Either way, the Chinese government by now knows there's contaminated seitan on the market.

[Critters2]

39. You have more faith in the Chinese govt than I have

and I still say seitan could be made here. There's no reason to import any wheat product to Kansas.

It also occurs to me that the contaminated stuff could have been dumped to keep it from getting into Chinese food. Either way, it's time to stop importing the stuff from China.

[jmowreader]

56. The Chinese government is EXTREMELY business friendly

There is a very long tradition in China of people being REAL leery of businesses they havent traded with for five generations. An example is banks: if Chinese people get even a whiff of trouble going on in a bank, there's almost always a run on all of them. As far as I know, China is the only nation in the world that considers economic crimes to be capital offenses, and their tradition is the reason why.

I think it's even worse here. Seitan is NOT that hard to make. It's time-consuming, but you can make it at home. You can make most of the foods eaten in China at home. I think that if word gets out in China that Chinese seitan was exported to America with rat poison in it, there's a good chance the entire Chinese packaged-food industry could collapse. To keep this from happening, they'll fall back on an old Communist habit: find some people to blame this on, preferably the ones who actually did it, and shoot them on national TV.

[cassiepriam]

2. This is what happens when we live in an oligarchy. Profits more important than lives.

[HughBeaumont]

4. But don't you SEE? The CONSUMER benefits SO much from job offshoring!!!11!!

:sarcasm: :puke: :sarcasm: :puke: :sarcasm: :puke: :sarcasm: :puke: :sarcasm: :puke: :sarcasm: :puke:

Yeah, I guess that's what it's all about. As long as our crap costs less, who cares that the middle class is on a rocket ride to the bottom?

Read some of my journal. I cannot believe there are people on a democratic board actually DEFENDING this practice. Tell me what GOOD comes out of someone's life being ruined. Tell me what GOOD comes out of someone's dream of a business destroyed. Tell me what GOOD comes out of playing employee musical chairs. I've seen far too many lives and careers destroyed because of this BS.

[MadMaddie]

6. Take free trade and the weakening of government offices like the

FDA and you have a disaster looming over the horizen.

It's obvious that Nafta, GATT, WTO, CAFTA has allowed inferior products into America and it will kill humans eventually.

[Quakerfriend]

7. And, another thing, the Chinese are notoriously lax with

regard to laws that protect the consumer. Remember, all these products form China that flow across our borders are not inspected for lead, for ex. Why do you think we currently find outrageously high levels of lead in the lunch boxes of little kids??? Lead is also found in mini blinds in high quantities. And, on and on it goes.

[Elwood P Dowd]

11. Don't forget the human food pouring in from various countries.

Who knows what chemicals have been used? Who knows how much DDT has been sprayed on those veggies?

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. I watched a show about China and was appalled at the almost nil

regulation of goods. In fact, there was a private guy for hire that was going around checking on things, and he wasn't hired by the procudtion or delivery companies. A lot of people get sick and die over there because people will sell "Scope" but it isn't scope it's anti-freeze or something else. Counterfeit goods are HUGE and hugely dangerous over there.

[havocmom]

8. America has become one big tenement and free traders are slum lords

Halliburton brass moving to Dubai, shell off-shore corporations ... all absentee landlords. They took what was worth taking and leave the building (our infrastructure) to crumble or bought up by other absentee slumlords (think foreign corporations buying US toll roads, ports)

America has become a tenement. The GOP and free-traders were the agents.

[AmyDeLune]

9. "...only a few cats and dogs..."

It could just have easily been baby food or candy. They've already had problems with lead in imported children's items (metal charms, backpacks, lunchboxes, and the like) now this with the pet food which the company has been aware of for months. How many living beings need to die or suffer permanent damage for the profit and greed of a few?

[Just-plain-Kathy]

10. "It's only a few dogs and cats -- don't worry about it". ...

That quote bugs the hell out of me. Who knows how many dogs and cats died because of this? Most people wouldn't bring their pets to have an autopsy.

It's like when I hear people say with a straight face "that we have more American deaths in American cities then we have in Iraq". ...They don't think about all our maimed soldiers.

K&R

[kestrel91316]

12. Tell your person that it's HUNDREDS dead, and thousands,

perhaps tens of thousands sickened and left with medically uncertain futures.

Next time it WILL be people. You just watch.

[Critters2]

40. You bet your ass it will. This is just a very harsh warning. nt

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

13. The free traders will wake up when the last US citizen

in the defunct middle class dies. Then it's high fives and good job brownies!!
The rape of America will be complete.

[originalpckelly]

14. No, they're not free traders, I'm a free trader...

they are trade tyrants. Food should be grown locally, and people should know the farmers and know what they put in the food.

And big evil companies commanded by tyrants should not use anti-competitive tactics to financially ruin competitors.

[upi402]

15. Great posts!

3 CHEERS!!
:toast: :toast: :toast:

[robinlynne]

18. and don't forget we slaughter horses here and sell them abroad.

[dysfunctional press]

53. well, that's at least got to benefit the trade defecit.

every little bit helps.

[cosmicdot]

19. knr

We need a REAL progressive Democrat elected in 2008 to save our ass. The DLC free trade crowd will never fix this problem.

[OhioChick]

20. Damn Good Post!

K&R

:kick:

[leftupnorth]

23. Call them Free Traitors. That's what they are.

They are Economic Traitors, and yet they walk around free. I wrote an LTTE about free trade and they published it that way, spelling intact.

[kiahzero]

24. Do you see protectionism as a viable alternative?

Also, I found it interesting that you didn't mention the EU in your OP.

[Elwood P Dowd]

25. We better start practicing a little protectionism

or we might wind up dead like these dogs and cats. From your tone, I gather you support the republican talking points demonizing fair trade supporters as "protectionists".

As for the EU, what in the hell do they have to do with this uninspected, unregulated crap coming in from Asia?

[kiahzero]

48. Like Apple products?

Nice avatar. :shrug:

pro·tec·tion·ism
1. Economics. the theory, practice, or system of fostering or developing domestic industries by protecting them from foreign competition through duties or quotas imposed on importations.

I call opponents of free trade "protectionists," because that's what it means to oppose free trade. Either you are in favor of protective tariffs or other regulations (protectionists), or you are against them. There is an aspect of degree here (it's not all or nothing), but if one describes oneself as against free trade, I fail to see how one could object to the label "protectionist."

The EU is related because the political unity (a quite remarkable thing, really) came after years of free trade.

[Elwood P Dowd]

51. NAFTA, GATT, WTO, CAFTA, are not free trade.

When you ship labor and capital out of the country to take advantage of slave labor and lax environmental laws, that is not free trade. When you lower your tariffs immediately and give over 80 foreign countries 15-20 years to lower theirs, that is not free trade. When you have no VAT and allow dozens of your trading partners to keep theirs, that is not free trade. David Ricardo, the man who first proposed the free trade philosophy, would not consider any of our trade agreements free trade. You are confusing free trade with outsourcing and investment scams masquerading as free trade. They benefit a few wealthy CEOs and a few wealthy investors at the expense of the working class and the environment. You should know better than to support this charade.

[Elwood P Dowd]

52. Apple?

Apple was no different than thousands of other US corporations. They took advantage of the situation to make more money. That's the nature of the beast. Every consumer electronics product you buy is either made overseas or loaded with foreign parts and assembled by a screwdriver factory in the US. I would rather pay a little more and and keep these jobs here, but our leaders saw differently and forced everyone to move their production out of the country in order to compete.

One of these days YOU are going to suffer because of this LACK OF PROTECTIONISM. You might go to a restaurant and eat a salad full of products from some country that allows the corporate farms to soak that crap in DDT or some other nasty chemical. Then that product comes across our border with zero tariffs and little or no inspection. Then you eat the crap. Hope you enjoy your stay in the hospital. Hope none of your family members die from the experience. We are now dependent on foreign sources for much of our food supply, and we're dependent on republican appointees to insure the safety of those products. Does that make you sleep well at night?

Keep posting your republican talking points and hyperbole. You will not find many friends here because we have witnessed the results of your policies.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

41. The EU worked fine as long as it was just the Western European countries

because they all have pretty high standards of living. (Also, unlike NAFTA and CAFTA, it allows free movement of PEOPLE as well as businesses. A resident of one EU country can work in another EU country as easily as a resident of one U.S. state can work in another state.)

With high standards of living all around, there was no motivation for a French company to move all its production to Germany, for instance. There was no motivation for a Dutch worker to move to the UK unless he or she wanted some experience in an English-speaking environment.

However, with the addition of the Eastern European countries, they're beginning to see not only job outsourcing but Eastern Europeans moving to Western European countries in large numbers, willing to work for minimum wage and crowding out the native-born low-income workers. When I was in the UK last summer, I was astonished at the number of restaurant, espresso bar, and hotel workers with Eastern European accents, and in one old church we visited, the parish bulletin told of renting out their building for Catholic services for immigrant agricultural workers.

This has become enough of a problem that Bulgarians and Rumanians will not be allowed free access to jobs in Western Europe when their countries join the EU.

I believe that it would have been better to have a Western European Union and a separate Eastern European Union.

Similarly, it would have been good to have TWO North American free trade zones, one for Canada and the U.S., allowing free movement of both people and businesses, and another one for Mexico and the Central American countries.

[kiahzero]

49. Trade unity came before the political unity.

Free trade in Europe dates back to the mid-1950s, and Schengen agreement didn't come until 1985.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

50. Yes, but the original free trade bloc was

the Common Market, made up of France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries, all countries already on their way up economically.

They didn't start by setting up ways for French and German jobs to go to poor countries.

[blues90]

26. We watched Link TV today

I avoid Link during the week to save my sanity or what is left of it .

Today we saw the GM crops stories and how most of the crops in Canada are GM swill contaminating all of the few honest farmers crops . Then they went on to the terminator gene that destroys the fertile seeds renduring useless .

Once you combine this horror ( and I do feel it is horror tampering with and altering nature ) with the food sources from all over the globe , none labeled so you can't tell where the hell the food came from and the lack of inspections and safety , then you must ask yourself and almost assure yourself that each meal can in fact become your last .

They went further into animal genetics and altering genes with some horrid results offered up on film .

All of this is the direct result and the focus of shear greed to view and handle a good bottom line $$$$$$$$$$$$.

We can thank the WTO and many other mega corporations as well as their sick and paid for scientists climbing all over the globe to further promote their horrors on other unsuspecting countries .

Once the natural design and balance of nature is altered there is no way of EVER bringing it back .

[Oilwellian]

27. I just wrote this LTTE

In the latest news of the pet poisoning story, we learned the source of poison in the pet food comes from a wheat gluten bought in China. Wheat gluten is an essential product used in many of the foods we buy today.

That fact leads one to wonder if other food products haven't been tainted as well. Supposedly, there are laws that protect the American consumer from being poisoned by a foreign nation, however lately I haven't had much confidence in our government enforcing those laws.

Politicians say world trade is good for us....but perhaps, for our own survival, we should chuck aside their phony smiles and keenly question our food sources and demand higher scrutiny. Otherwise, we remain sitting ducks in a world of "terror."

I'm certain they will print it...they've printed 8 of my 9 LTTE's. :D

[TahitiNut]

28. Future Headline: "Miners Dismiss Dead Canaries As 'Just A Few Birds'"

Stupid. Just. F*cking. Stupid. :puke:

[happydreams]

29. You may have made a mioer error here...

its spelled "free traitors". :evilgrin:

[Cabcere]

31. US citizens already ARE dying by the thousands

and I would imagine that the same people who "support our troops" so much are the same people who don't care about the dogs and cats dying, and the possible future harm that could be caused. :shrug:

[leftofthedial]

36. no. capitalism will continue unabated until

there is either a revolution, overthrowing the plutocrats and reigning in the corporations

or the planet incinerates.

[robcon]

42. Free Trade is the greatest hope for the world.

Both for peace and for prosperity.

[Solon]

44. If that is true, then the world is truly doomed...

Peace through blackmail is no peace at all.

[Elwood P Dowd]

46. I knew it was only a matter of time before he showed up.

Some people will literally go to their death bed worshiping the destruction and devastation caused by free trade.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

47. Only if your idea of Prosperity is the Death of the USA.

[Jamastiene]

54. I'm too late to recommend this, but

I sure as hell can kick it for resonating with me loud and clear. Well. Said. :thumbsup:

:kick:

[and-justice-for-all]

55. "It's only a few dogs and cats -- don't worry about it".

Whomever said that line can go fuck themselves. So when a family member of theirs is offed by some food posioning you tell them "Oh, its just your (Insert relative of choice here), dont worry about it."

There is nothing more invasive then the Human species, specially the ones that like collecting pictures of dead Presidents printed on Green Paper that worship things unseen.

[bluedawg12]

58. BINGO! You nailed it!

Sure I am pissed off that I bought poisoned food for my beloved companion pets on the very night that the recalls were made- because wallyfart had not pulled the poison off the shelf and now I have to drive back and return it. NOt to mention that I fed my guys one can of the crap before I realized what it was and worried about their health for days.

But- you nailed the bigger issue- mega-corporations: one company makes 80% of all brand name pet foods. So much for the illusion of choice - it's all the same crap under different names.

then, the reality of a Canadian company i.e. cheap sourcing for US companies who are being paid with my hard earned US dollars by- passing US safety rules and going to a cheap source of foreign labor made commodity, wheat.

It's globalization and mutli-national corporations run amuck and the outcome is right here in front ouf our snouts. Next time? Maybe the wheat will be in our kids cereal?

In the meantime, they are destroying the US middle class, collective bargaining through unions, and sending our jobs to unregulated sweat shops.

Here's a question: does the Chinese wheat supplier pay taxes here to support our infra structure and society?

[Odin2005]

59. Lassez Faire is nothing but a secular religion, right up there with Marxism.

The theologians of the Free Market act as if the market is an end unto it self that must be appeased like an angry god and not as tool to be used by society as a means to an end.