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Trade Bill Fails In the House
schwit1 writes: President Obama suffered a major defeat to his Pacific Rim free trade initiative Friday as House Democrats helped derail a key presidential priority despite his last-minute, personal plea on Capitol Hill. "In a remarkable rejection of a president they have resolutely backed, House Democrats voted to kill assistance to workers displaced by global trade, a program their party created and has stood by for four decades. By doing so, they brought down legislation granting the president trade promotion authority — the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress — before it could even come to a final vote." This was after Silicon Valley heavyweights made a last minute push to pass the bill and the White House got personal with many Democratic lawmakers.
While the summary is trying to make this some kind of huge rebuff of the President by democrats in Congress, the only serious problem with this bill is it was for too long of a time period. Obama is only in office for another 18 months, and this fast track authority would have extended years after he is gone. This vote had almost nothing to do with democrats not trusting Obama; it was them not trusting the unknown President who will take his mantle a couple years from now.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Right, this isn't a treaty, it's the president's authority to "fast-track" trade bills (like the TPP, TTIP and newly-revealed TiSA) past congress that was shot down.
morons who want to weaken or destroy our government are only helping the plutocrats. the power they have over you does not disappear when you weaken or destroy the government, all you do is give them a smaller roster of people to pay off
the problem is not government
the problem is the plutocrats who buy congresswhores and fake regulators
you want to FIX government, not destroy it. cure it of its corruption
if you have less government, less regulation, the power the plutocrats have over you does not disappear. they simply have less people they have to bribe. then they start hiring their own goon squads and turn you into slaves
that's not science fiction, that's well establish american history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
we defeated them with labor movements and unions. but, like you said, since reagan the unions have been broken up. scott walker is killing the last of them. and now the plutocrats are back in charge
now we have to fight the fight of our great grandfathers, all over again
the problem is legalized corruption in the usa. we need REGULATION. actual regulation, not corrupt regulation controlled by the people who are supposed to be regulated
of course that's not perfect, but it is 9,000x better than no regulation and less government
look to canada, the nordic countries: places where they actually have effective government, actual laws that control corruption. and where the people are happier, more socially mobile, and spend far less on healthcare and education than we do
in the usa we have a supreme court who in 2010 said "money is speech" and so the rich now have the only real effective speech in the usa. probably the most anti-american and destructive event in the history of the usa. not the war of 1812, not the civil war, not pearl harbor, not 911: the most anti-american event in the history of this country was 2010's citizens united
you want to strengthen your government, and have strong anti-corruption laws passed
that's the only power you really have: your government. YOUR government, not the corrupted piece of shit we currently have. fight to get it back
fix it, don't destroy it (morons who dream of shooting it out in the woods a la the second amendment and revolution are simply dead people waking: you don't have the numbers nor the firepower, and revolutions are far far worse than our current problems regardless)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the nordic countries and canada have more government than us and far less corruption. the people are happier, more socially mobile, and pay far less for healthcare and education
the problem is we want effective laws against corruption. yes: more government -> more government corruption is true as long as the usa does not effective laws against corruption. 2010's citizens united for example simply boldly stated legalized corruption is the way. we must reverse that and install many other anti-corruption laws and only then do we have fairness
but less government and less regulation does not lead to less corruption, it simply means the plutocrats have less people they need to bribe to get what they want. that only helps them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
he nordic countries and canada have more government than us and far less corruption. the people are happier, more socially mobile, and pay far less for healthcare and education
The important difference there is that the people of the Nordic countries (at least Sweden and Finland, where I visited and lived) still have faith in their institutions. Americans haven't had faith in our institutions since Watergate. It's not just the Government either; in increasing numbers Americans don't trust business, academia, religion, or any other reasonably sized institution.
The reasons for this are varied -- you could write an entire thesis on the subject -- but at the end of the day it's the reality of the situation, and a Nordic style welfare state is a non-starter in the United States.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It gives them less need to do any bribing. They just go out and do what they want with no resistance.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
The defeat of fast-track authority makes it more likely that the content of the TPP will be revealed to the public before it gets voted on. If fast-track had passed, the TPP would have been the world's largest shrink-wrap agreement.
The Democrats voted against TAA (the fig-leaf program that pretends to help workers who lose their jobs to a new trade bill), which was contrary to their normal voting pattern, AS A TACTIC TO INDUCE A DELAY. "Fast Track" actually PASSED. Given that TAA and Fast Track passed together in the Senate, their failure to pass together in the House is a temporary shoe tossed into the gears of this monstrosity, BUT it can be overcome easily by the Senate simply mimicking what the House did.
This was political magic for a bunch of people; Democrats Senators will be able to tell their union supporters that they supported TAA (in the earlier Senate action), even as enough of them voted for Fast Track. Democrat House members will be able to say they stood against Fast Track, even though many supported it and the Senate may align their work with what the House did and thereby pass it. Many Republicans who opposed Fast Track were able to vote "yes" in order to placate their business backers even as the thing stalled. Many Republicans who oppose TAA but did not want to be the ones to kill it got to watch as the Dems did that, etc. Nearly every political group in DC got something they can use to deceive this or that voting block. Ultimately, the groups pushing this massive crap sandwich are going to demand it and get it, unless the public (from labor-concerned Dems, to sovereignty-concerned TEA Partiers) stand up and make it clear that votes out-weigh campaign cash.
After 200+ years, the congress critters have highly-optimized the political theater in Washington so their big money backers get what they want without the public getting too mad. They have gotten away with this garbage over and over again with things like NAFTA, the WTO, etc. People on the other side of the Atlantic have had the same thing done to them by their political elites.... The UK into the EU, followed by continual-but-never-filfilled promises of a public vote on that membership was such a trick that subsumed national rules into an international agreement. These things are all alike: they allow the wealthy and powerful to get what they want and the politicians to pretend to be powerless because: unaccountable international body and treaty. They never want the public to ask "WHO CREATED THAT BODY OR THAT TREATY?"
Without America, TPP is dead, but there will likely be a new free trade agreement to replace it, anchored on China, rather than America.
That's because China sees a trade agreement as being about trade and making money, not a means of furthering the global agendas of whichever megacorporations pay the people writing it the most money. I'm from a country that has a free trade agreement with China, negotiated openly and available for anyone to check (heck, there's even a web site set up to tell you all you need to know), that basically says "you sell us your stuff, we sell you ours, the rest is up to you". That's a free trade agreement, not the stuff US corporations are trying to force on the world.