An excellent discussion of what Congress is doing in secret to send more jobs out of the U.S. and exploit workers, while the American public is propagandized to be outraged about "illegal aliens."
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05182007/transcript3.htmlBILL MOYERS: Just a week ago the Bush administration and the new Democratic leaders in Congress announced they had made a big breakthrough: a new bi-partisan trade agreement. Billed as an "important first step" - The President gets the 'free trade' he wants for Wall Street, Democrats get the 'Fair Trade' they want for Main Street...namely, some protection for workers whose jobs are being shipped overseas... and protection for the environment that is often trampled by the trade winds of capitalism. The negotiation of this deal was secret. Its official language has still not been made public. Skeptical Democrats - like Steve Kagen - who had not been in the negotiations want to know why, if there were strong protections for workers and the environment why were groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually speaking well of the deal.
Here with the backstory is John R. MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper's magazine, one of the country's oldest and most honored publications. He wrote this book... "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War," back in 1992. His second book is called "The Selling of 'Free Trade': NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy."
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BILL MOYERS: But there has been a deadlock on trade for some years now. There has been great disaffection with NAFTA, what's happened in Mexico, the number of jobs lost in this country. And the Republicans haven't wanted to give on these issues of labor standards and environmental standards. Could this possibly be a breakthrough?
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: No, because it's just like the NAFTA side agreements in the '90s. They guaranteed all sorts of things in the side agreements: labor rights, environmental protection in Mexico. And none of it got done. Virtually none of it got done. Now, in these agreements, they're saying that these countries are suddenly going to start respecting labor rights. That countries like Peru, which can only survive by selling us their cheap labor. In other words, that's all they've got-- are going to raise their labor standards that would kill the very justification for set-- for setting up a factory in Peru. It's the same thing in Mexico. It's the same thing in China.
BILL MOYERS: How do you explain that so many people embrace this so heartily so quickly?
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Well, the people who embraced it: the media, the pundits, the elites-- the heads of-- banks and of investment banks, and the leadership of the two parties. That's not the people. The people are sold this-- idea of free trade over and over again, as though it were good for them. I mean, what do we have to cite? The statistics speak for themselves. More than half a million jobs officially lost because of NAFTA. The other thing to remember, of course, is that it's not just the brokerages and the financial business. It's the retail and restaurant industry likes it. Wal-Mart and Wall Street are now allied in this unholy pro-free trade alliance.
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BILL MOYERS: Are you also an economic nationalist?
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: I've become more of one because - not in the Buchanan sense - because more and more I realize that every time somebody says, "We're helping the poor" or "We're helping the foreigners" or "the poor foreigners," what they really mean is, "We're going to exploit the hell out of them. This is a way we're going to lock in cheap labor in any country you can think of and exploit them." And it's a union killing movement in the United States. You cannot form an union in the United States anymore without risking your plant being closed, sent overseas, or other kinds of intimidation. That's why union membership and private union membership has now fallen to eight percent of the workforce. As an American, as a citizen, I don't want to see the big money keep winning the way it's been winning over and over and over again. I also want to see a democratic debate restored on this absolutely crucial issue. Fast track, if it passes, kills the possibility of a democratic debate because then it's in the hands of the executive.
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BILL MOYERS: What is the strategy of doing this? You think it is about contributions between now and 2000-- the campaign--
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Yes. They're trying to string it out so they can raise as much money from Wall Street as possible and then hope that the issue goes away or that it gets voted on after the 2008 election. We, as citizens, have got to stop it before it gets to that point. We have to say to the Congress, "We're not gonna let you do another NAFTA. We're not going to let you do another PNTR. We're going to be involved in this debate as citizens, and we're gonna restore democracy to this debate." And if it requires action in the street like there was in Seattle in 1999, maybe that's what's going to happen. If it requires a split in the Democratic Party-- maybe that's what's gonna have to happen. But the way it's been going, the jobs just keep going out. Median income in this country has fallen $10 in constant dollars from 2002 until last year. $10. Not huge but people are feeling it and they're panicked.