The Obama Legacy, Part 1 of Many: Why Secret Trade Negotiations? Because TPP & TAFTA are NAFTA on Crack & Evil Steroids

 

 

Obamarama

The Obama Legacy, Part 1 of Many: Why Secret Trade Negotiations? Because TPP & TAFTA are NAFTA on Crack & Evil Steroids

Wed, 12/18/2013 - 15:28 — Bruce A. Dixon

 

 

 

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Thanks to WikiLeaks, a chapter of the secret agreement being negotiated by the White House has been made public. It will enshrine corporate profits as sacred rights, above the ability of local governments to make health, safety, wage, and “buy-local” regulations, and enable corporations to patent drugs, trivial techniques, diseases and living organisms.

The Obama Legacy, Part 1 of Many: Why Are Obama's Trade Negotiations Secret? Because TPP & TAFTA are NAFTA on Crack & Evil Steroids

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

That's what NAFTA gave us: lower wages and higher unemployment on both sides of the US-Mexican border"

Back in 1995, a Democrat in the White House told us the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA would create hundreds of thousands of new US jobs.

What it actually did, along with billions in corporate welfare to Big Agribusiness, was send cheap genetically modified corn to Mexico, the land where humans first domesticated corn a thousand or two years ago. The cheap US frankenfood corn contaminated the genome of original Mexican corn varieties, and sent Mexican corn prices so low that local farmers couldn't pay their bills. Millions were driven off the land into the cities, looking for work to keep their families alive.

NAFTA also gave US subsidies to US businesses wanting to relocate to the new belt of factories along the Mexican border that sprang up to take advantage of a new and desperately cheap workforce there, and thoughtfully provided employers protection from even Mexican health & safety regulations. When those business picked up and ran to the Philippines, Bangladesh or China a few years later, unemployed Mexicans crossed into the US by the millions, again seeking to keep their families alive. The long racist tradition of a two-tier US labor market made it almost natural for employers to add a new bottom tier for immigrant labor.

That's what NAFTA gave us: lower wages and higher unemployment on both sides of the US-Mexican border. Goods and capital now cross those borders freely, people and prosperity, not so much. Now it's 2 decades later. Another Democrat in the White House wants another pair of trade treaties, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). But this time, we have two decades of experience on what these trade deals are, and how to stop them. And they can be stopped.

Though Barack Obama says they will be job-creating beasts, the terms and progress of the negotiations are classified, which means there is no LEGAL way for citizens to learn what is being negotiated. The only way the public has gained any knowledge of what's in the agreement, and how the talks are progressing has been for WikiLeaks to obtain and publish a chapter of the proposed TPP agreement.

If your name isn't Monsanto, Disney, or Goldman Sachs, it ain't good news, according to Dr. Margaret Flowers of Flush the TPP. About 600 multinational corporate lobbyists are writing the treaty, backed up by their champions, the representatives of the US government and a handful of other wealthy nations. Their job is to force the thing down the throats of relatively small and less powerful nations, who are often more directly responsive to popular pressure than the US government, and whose populations are better informed on the issues than here, where corporate media keep us well-entertained, but ill-informed, or even dis-informed.

For the record, here are just a few of the wonderful things TAFTA and TPP will do:

They will extend the length of existing copyrights and patents (they call this intellectual property) almost indefinitely, so that high prices can be extracted for existing drugs and their derivatives forever, and no works of art or science may pass into the public domain.

They will enable corporations to patent and claim “intellectual property rights” to just about anything, including surgical techniques, the genomes of living organisms and diseases, and the chemical compounds existing in natural substances, all the better to extract revenue from those of us who need to eat, wear clothes, or get sick.

They will enshrine the doctrine of “takings” into international law, sanctifying corporate profits so that governments anywhere on earth which enact wage and hour, environmental, or “buy local” laws can be successfully sued in secret courts to compensate corporations for lost current and future profits.

They will promote and sometimes require the privatization of public health, public land, public transit, and public utilities like water worldwide, to better enable the extraction of rent from people who do things like drink water, grow or eat food, travel or live indoors.

They will promote the rights of transnational investors and capital over those of local communities and the environment at every turn, and transform government into an even purer instrument of the one percent than it is now.

"The secret trade negotiations of the Obama administration are the admission of its weakness..." 

There's more, lots more than we can cover in this short article. We urge you to follow the links in this article to get a grasp of what so-called “free trade” agreements are, and what can be done to stop them, and to take some action yourself. Again, it's vital to understand that TPP and TAFTA can be stopped. Local governments, as Dr. Flowers points out, are passing resolutions to defy anti “buy-local” and other common free-trade provisions. Even some corporate Democrats are jumping, or threatening to jump the ship on this one.

The secret trade negotiations of the Obama administration are the admission of its weakness. As Obama trade representative Ron Kirk conceded, if the American public knew what its representatives were pushing in these trade talks, they'd be in overwhelming opposition. The first and last thing to remember is that although the US political system is designed and constantly refined to make it more and more democracy proof and people proof, it only works if we let it. Let's not.

It's time to stop caring what our betters don't allow, and oppose these “trade agreements” anyhow. It's time to take some action. Now.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and a state committee member of the Georgia Green Party. Contact him via this site's contact page, or at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

Obama Signed Bill Hastening Fracking Permits on ND Public Lands

Days Before Casselton Oil Train Explosion

by Steve Horn / January 7th, 2014

On December 20, both chambers of the U.S. Congress passed a little-noticed bill to expedite permitting for hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) on public lands in the Bakken Shale basin, located predominantly in North Dakota. And on December 26, President Obama signed the bill into law.

Days later, on December 30, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) freight train owned by Warren Buffett carrying Bakken fracked oil exploded in Casselton, North Dakota. Locals breathed a smoky sigh of relief that the disaster happened outside the town center. In July 2013, a “bomb train” carrying Bakken oil exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people.

Dubbed the “Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Streamlining Act,” the bill passed unanimously in the Senate as S.244 and 415-1 in the House as H.R. 767, with Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) serving as the sole “nay” vote and 16 representatives abstaining. Among the abstentions were representatives Keith Defazio (D-OR), Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Campbell (R-CA).]

H.R. 767′s sponsor is North Dakota Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, who received $213,150 from the oil and gas industry prior to the 2012 election, and an additional $29,000 for the forthcoming 2014 elections.
Co-sponsors include Wyoming Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis ($109,050 from the oil and gas industry pre-2012 election, $28,500) in the 2014 election cycle, South Dakota Republican Rep. Kristi Noem ($95,501 from the industry pre-2012 election, $20,400 pre-2014) and Montana Republican Rep. Steve Daines ($124,620 pre-2012 election and $87,412) pre-2014.

S.244 is sponsored by Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), who has taken $291,237 from the oil and gas industry since his 2010 election to Congress. Cosponsor Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) received $111,050 from the oil and gas industry since her 2012 electoral victory.

Sen. Hoeven visited BNSF’s Fort Worth, Texas, corporate headquarters on January 3 to meet with the company’s CEO, Matt Rose, “to get an update on the Casselton derailment and measures that can be taken to enhance railroad safety.”

“While it’s a blessing that no one was hurt in this accident, we must now work with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), industry and leaders on all levels to get to the root cause of this week’s derailment,” Hoeven said in a press statement not mentioning the bill he sponsored will create additional oil-by-rail markets.

“We also need to rigorously review ways that shipping petroleum products by rail can be improved for safety.”

Energy Policy Act of 2005 Amendment

The BLM Streamlining Act passed into law by the Obama administration is actually an amendment to Section 365 of the Bush-era 2005 Energy Policy Act. It creates offices in North Dakota and Montana to rubber stamp fracking permits on public lands in those states.

Section 365 created a “Pilot Project to Improve Federal Permit Coordination” on public lands “to improve coordination of oil and gas permitting…as a means of meeting the Nation’s need for dependable, affordable, environmentally responsible energy,” explains the BLM website.

This compelled BLM to set up field offices to more efficiently fast track oil and gas drilling permits in Rawlins and Buffalo, Wyoming; Miles City, Montana; Farmington and Carlsbad, New Mexico; Grand Junction/Glenwood Springs, Colorado; and Vernal, Utah.

Left out of the original Section 365: North Dakota, the new darling of the U.S. domestic oil fracking scene. The BLM Streamlining Act “[r]eplaces the Miles City, Montana field office with the Montana/Dakotas State Office,” creating an open season for fracking North Dakota’s public lands.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 is perhaps most famous for the “Halliburton Loophole,” which exempted the fracking industry from the legal dictates of the Safe Drinking Water Act and other laws. The loophole also made the chemicals contained in “fracking fluid” a trade secret, meaning the industry doesn’t have to disclose the recipe of chemicals injected into the ground in fracking operations.

Obama Executive Order: Fast-Track Bakken Permits

In March 2012, President Obama issued Executive Order 13604,  lending an explanation to his signing off on the BLM Streamlining Act.
Obama announced the Order while standing in front of the sections of pipe that would soon become the southern half of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline (now rebranded the “Gulf Coast Pipeline“) in Cushing, Oklahoma (the “pipeline crossroads of the world“) — a pipeline that will be fast-tracked by the Order.

But it did much more than that, calling on the federal government to “significantly reduce the aggregate time required to make decisions in the permitting and review of infrastructure projects.”

“The quality of our Nation’s infrastructure depends…on Federal permitting and review processes, including planning, approval and consultation processes,” explains the Obama Order. “[I]t is critical that executive departments and agencies take all steps within their authority…to execute Federal permitting and review processes with maximum efficiency and effectiveness.”

Another key piece of that Order: creation of the Bakken Federal Executive Group.

The Group was created to find “ways to facilitate the development of oil and gas resources in the booming Bakken Formation,” according to Petroleum News Bakken.

“Interior continues to be a leader in implementing President Obama’s vision for a federal permitting process that is smarter [and] more efficient,” David Hayes, Department of Interior Deputy Secretary said in a June press release on the Bakken Federal Executive Group. “By coordinating across the many federal agencies involved in the Bakken region…we are able to offer a better process for industry.”

Just over a year later in May 2013, Obama issued a related follow-up memorandum to the Executive Order, calling for permitting time of major infrastructure projects to be cut in half.

“Rather Benign Bill…Rather Major Ramifications”

Speaking on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2013, Cramer — sponsor of the House version of the bill — referred to the BLM Streamlining Act as “a rather benign bill with rather major ramifications.”

Cramer also referred to North Dakota as the “perfect laboratory” for streamlining of permits on public lands, saying “the North Dakota experiment will be one people look back on and say ‘That’s the way to do it, that’s the right way to do it.’”

Investor Press: “ND’s Oil Future Just Got Brighter”

Remarking on the bill’s passage, investor press outlet Motley Fool  boasted “North Dakota’s oil future just got brighter.”

Yet, not everyone’s happy about the bill. In an interview with DeSmogBlog, actor Mark Ruffalo — founder of the activist group Water Defense — asked the rhetorical question, “Who are these representatives working for?”

“What is clear is that in nearly every transaction Congress and this president does with the fossil fuel industry, the American people and the commons of public property, our public air and public water are up for sale for real cheap,” Ruffalo remarked.

“Not only are these transactions cheap but in the end we foot the bill of the costs of exploding trains and bursting pipelines carrying highly volatile explosive substances that no train nor pipeline is meant to carry in the form of Bakken crude oil.”

“North Dakota will be a case study of a land that was squeezed dry of every precious thing that beautiful state has been blessed with: its majestic beauty, clean air and water.”

Steve Horn writes at Desmogblog where this article first appeared. Read other articles by Steve.

This article was posted on Tuesday, January 7th, 2014 at 9:14pm and is filed under Energy, Environment, Fracking, Obama, Oil, Gas, Coal, Pipelines.

2013 In Review: Obama Talks Climate Change–But Pushes Fracking

Mother Jones

Environment

→ Climate Change, Climate Desk, Environment, Obama, Top Stories

2013 In Review: Obama Talks Climate Change–But Pushes Fracking

 

Global warming stopped being political poison, but the fracking and coal export boom continued.

—By Suzanne Goldenberg

| Thu Dec. 26, 2013 3:00 AM GMT

Rena Schild/Shutterstock

This story originally appeared in the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the ClimateDesk collaboration.

This was the year when climate change came out of the closet.

Barack Obama elevated climate change to one of his top presidential priorities. White House and other officials brought up the topic in public after spending the previous four years scuttling away from any mention of climate change. Climate change became a factor in state elections and there were polls suggesting even Republicans in the most conservative states wanted to take measures to avoid a future of dangerous climate change.

But it was also a year when Obama claimed as a personal achievement the expansion of oil and gas production through hydraulic fracturing, and when the coal industry sent coal overseas to rescue the mines closing down at home.

Barack Obama used the January 21 inaugural address for his second term in the White House to renew his commitment to respond to the climate crisis "knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations".

He linked climate change to Hurricane Sandy and the other extreme weather events of 2012 and took a swipe at climate deniers.

He was even more forceful in his first State of the Union address on February 12, seizing the moment to put Republicans on notice: "If Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will."

He said he would direct government, including the Environmental Protection Agency, to use its authority to cut greenhouse gas emissions, promote renewable energy, and protect communities from future climate change.

Obama delivered on that promise on June 25 in another landmark speech in which he directed the Environmental Protection Agency to take measures to cut emissions from new and existing power plants.

Josh Lopez/Wikimedia Commons

The president also raised hopes that he would block the Keystone XL pipeline, which would open up new routes for crude from the Canadian tar sands, saying he would weigh the project's climate impacts when making his decision.

Power plants account for about 40 percent of America's carbon dioxide emissions, the largest source of carbon pollution. The directive put America back on track towards meeting its commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by the end of this decade.

"This is the year when they really started acting," said Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute. "I see a little more muscularity."

It was also, possibly, the year when climate change ceased to be seen as political poison.

In the Virginia governor's race, Democrat Terry McAuliffe ran television ads attacking his opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, as a climate change denier, and won. A number of polls suggested Republicans, even in conservative states, were growing concerned about climate change and wanted action.

"We see a political dynamic in motion that is headed in a good direction," Peter Altman, the climate director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told a conference call with reporters.

In the states, right-wing efforts to repeal regulations requiring power companies to use wind and solar power were defeated in Kansas, North Carolina, and Ohio.

Meanwhile, there was a steady beat of reminders of the dangers of climate change. The year did not repeat the extremes of 2012, which brought drought, Hurricane Sandy, and a string of extreme temperatures, producing America's hottest year on record.

US Department of Agriculture/Wikimedia Commons

But there were still cases of the wild weather and wildfires that are expected to rise under climate change.

On June 30, 19 firefighters died fighting a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona that had been fuelled by strong winds, 38°C temperatures, and a drought that has devastated the southwest. It was the biggest loss of life in a wild-land fire since 1933.

A 200-mile swathe of Colorado was left underwater after record rainfall in September. An early blizzard in October dumped 60 cm of snow in a single day on South Dakota, killing tens of thousands of cattle.

Meanwhile, Gina McCarthy, the EPA administrator, took a first step in September to cutting emissions from power plants, requiring stricter pollution controls for future construction. The EPA is expected to propose stricter standards for existing power plants in June 2014.

Obama was taking action on climate change in the international arena too. On June 8, Obama and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, agreed to work with other countries to reduce the use of HFCs, the coolants that are one of the most potent greenhouse gases. In November, US negotiators played a constructive role in coming to an agreement at the international climate talks in Warsaw.

"Does this all add up to solving the problem? No, we are nowhere near close," Steer said. "We are still heading in the wrong direction. We are still heading towards a world where temperatures will go up by 3°C…But we are going in the wrong direction less quickly than we were."

Beyond the political landscape, however, there were mixed signs. For the first time, there were more new solar, wind, and other renewable energy plants built than coal and oil combined. Warren Buffet's utility ordered $1 billion worth of new wind turbines for Iowa, and 39 coal plants shut down or announced plans to retire. No new coal plants came on line.

Joshua Doubek/Wikimedia Commons

But there was no let-up in the fracking boom that has turned America into an energy superpower–and is burning up stores of carbon that the UN's climate science panel said should be left in the ground to avoid a future climate disaster.

There were also few positive signs the EPA and other regulators were getting out ahead and putting stronger controls on the oil and gas industry. Campaigners urged the EPA to come out with strong controls on leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. They rued a decision by the EPA to walk away from three earlier investigations of water contamination linked to fracking.

"If you want to understand how people will remember the Obama climate legacy, a few facts tell the tale: By the time Obama leaves office, the US will pass Saudi Arabia as the planet's biggest oil producer and Russia as the world's biggest producer of oil and gas combined," the climate campaigner Bill McKibben wrote in Rolling Stone.

"In the same years, even as we've begun to burn less coal at home, our coal exports have climbed to record highs. We are, despite slight declines in our domestic emissions, a global-warming machine: At the moment when physics tell us we should be jamming on the carbon brakes, America is revving the engine."

In other areas too, there was retreat or uncertainty. The Food and Drug Administration continued to sit on a decision whether to allow the first genetically modified food animal–a fast growing salmon raised at an experimental research station in the hills of Panama.

Obama came out strongly for elephant conservation, ordering the public destruction of America's cache of seized illegal ivory. But the US Fish and Wildlife Service on December 16 proposed stripping grey wolves of protections across the country. The federal government also indicated it would move ahead to remove protections for grizzlies in the Yellowstone area.

Retron/WIkimedia Commons

Conservationists said the decision could jeopardize the successful effort to bring grey wolves back from the point of extinction.

"They are essentially abandoning wolf recovery before the job is done," said Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Centre for Biological Diversity. "The numbers are just 1 percent of what they were historically. In the areas where wolves did recover, it is a small fraction of their former range, or even a small fraction of the available habitat."

As the year drew to a close, however, there was a new note of optimism when the experienced operative John Podesta returned to the White House to guide its climate change efforts and other programs. Podesta has a strong environmental record and campaigners thought he would be able to pursue the climate change agenda more forcefully than previous White House advisors.

But Obama had yet to prove himself on one of the biggest environmental decisions of his presidency: the Keystone XL pipeline.

"Whether he likes it or not, whether he kicks it down the road, this decision on Keystone is his," said Betsy Taylor, a climate strategist who has mobilized prominent Obama supporters to prevail on him to reject the project. "This is one of the biggest decisions he is going to make, and it is going to send a really strong signal to the world, especially because he chose to frame it as carbon."

Barack Obama and the Legacy of American Capitalism

Barack Obama and the Legacy of American Capitalism

by Charles Sullivan / December 21st, 2013

You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you cannot face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says It.

–Malcolm X

I have been reading political commentary on Black Agenda Report (BAR) regularly of late. The site, which purveys a black leftist perspective, regularly excoriates President Obama, as well they should. BAR has become a trusted source in my quest to understand history and current events. This is the home of the real left, not the pseudo left that pervades the corporate airwaves masquerading as champions of equality. Here, no one is paying homage to Obama or calling him a liberal or progressive simply because he is a black democrat. No one is calling him a socialist, either. The political commentators at BAR hold Obama to the same standard to which they held George W. Bush and his fascist predecessors.

Most of the self-proclaimed liberals who castigated Bush and Cheney for their neoconservative polices are giving Obama, whose polices are no less regressive or extreme than those of his precursors, a free ride. This is because the president belongs to the Democratic Party, which continues to be associated with traditional liberalism in the minds of contemporary faux progressives and liberals, rather than the neoliberalism that defines its policies.

Those who continue to support Obama and his backsliding pro-corporate regime obviously have no conception about what classical liberalism and progressivism are. They are at least half a century behind the times.
Although I may lack the political acumen to concisely define terms such as liberalism, progressivism, and leftist, which are somewhat subjective anyway, it is apparent to me that neoliberalism, the form of liberalism that is actually practiced by today’s Democratic Party, bears much in common with the neoconservatism that is associated with contemporary Republicans. There is nothing progressive about either ideology, and nothing in them that is beneficial to workers. To call Obama a liberal or a socialist, as so many people do, is beyond farcical. It strains one’s credulity to the breaking point.

I distrust Barack Obama for the same reasons that I spurn George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the Clintons, and any other war mongering capitalist. My criticism has nothing to do with race or gender. It stems from ideological differences, class conflict, and radically dissimilar values from the ruling clique.

Among some black folk, charges of racism are leveled against any white folks who criticize the black president in the same way that charges of anti-Semitism are used against anyone who is critical of Israel’s Zionist polices of apartheid that, with the aid of the U.S., are being carried out against the Palestinians. This is not to deny the racism that is directed against the president. It is to philosophically and morally disassociate myself from any and all groups of white supremacists engaged in bigotry.

If a policy is morally reprehensible and unjust, just people have a moral obligation to criticize it, regardless of who is responsible for formulating and enacting such policies.  Every socially conscious human being has an ethical responsibility to take action against criminal government or any corporation that is harming one’s community, or for that matter, the planet.

From my perspective, BAR and WPFW’s Jared Ball are ethically consistent and accurate in their critiques of Barack Obama and American capitalism. These venerable warriors are true leftists who do not compromise their principles for political expediency, cost them what it may.

The virtually defunct radical left was once a formidable and organized political force in the U.S. Today’s leftists are treated like pariahs by the pseudo left and its neocon brethren. Radical leftists pose a viable threat to the established orthodoxy. Anyone who refuses to carry forth the performative role assigned to them by the dominant culture is a threat to those in power. As true combatants for justice, today’s left wing dissidents are worthy of being associated with iconic revolutionaries like Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Mumia Abu Jamal, all of whom happen to be black.

By contrast, Barack Obama, who mouths an endless stream of pseudo liberal platitudes, is an unabashed disciple of Milton Friedman and the market fundamentalism he revered. This identifies the president as a corporate fascist and thus a promoter of inequality. It allies him with America’s ruling class. Obama and his supporters should not be identified in any way, shape or form with the real left. Whatever minutia one uses to differentiate between contemporary neoliberals and neoconservatives is akin to splitting hairs.

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are not mortal enemies, as portrayed in the corporate media; they are in collusion against the world’s working class and the poor. Together, they are raping and pillaging the Earth Mother and repressing workers through economic violence and imposed austerity. Like costumed wrestlers performing on television, the acrimony is not real; it is vitriolic political theater, an enthralling puppet show for diehard believers.

We must somehow move beyond party politics, beyond the simplicity of liberal versus conservative dichotomy, beyond left against right, and see things as they really are rather than as we wish them to be.

Voting doesn’t change anything in a system flush with corporate money. The structures that put the money into politics cannot be used to extract it. Without proportional representation or corporate money, third parties are not a viable option in state and federal elections. They are just another distraction from reality, a mild form of symbolic protest. Voting for justice does nothing to actually attain it. Direct action directly applied to a problem offers the best hope for revolutionary change.

Conversely, political dualism keeps us fighting the wrong people. It has us believing in people and institutions that do not promote justice and do us harm. These institutions are not what they purport to be. They are at best a mirage; something that appears real but only exists in the mind of the beholder.

Belief in the American Dream and perverted systems of power as a means to justice provides a method for directing and cajoling the masses to do the biding of the super-wealthy and all-powerful corporate state. Faith, hope, and belief in phony people and bogus institutions function as a form of mass hypnosis that keeps the people from organizing in class struggle against a common oppressor—the capitalist system.

Despite reams of contradictory historical evidence, most people in the U.S. continue to associate democracy with capitalism. It is reckless of us to allow anyone to use these terms interchangeably without contesting them at every opportunity. Let me be clear: Democracy is the antithesis of capitalism! But capitalism is the product the U.S. government, the Pentagon, and the commercial media are marketing to us as democracy. And thus the inequality gap, the disparity between rich and poor, is growing wider rather than shrinking.

The nemesis of all working people, regardless of where they live or their political affiliation, is capitalism and its linear, hierarchal, male-dominated power structures. This is why we must have an truthful critique of capitalism and patriarchy and create alternatives that promote the public wellbeing above corporate profits. Many promising alternatives, such as Professor Richard Wolff’s Worker Self-Directed Enterprise, already exist.

When the richest and most powerful people on earth, the primary beneficiaries of capitalism, invest so many resources into demonizing and subverting the writings of one man—Karl Marx—and the various economic and philosophic alternatives to capitalism, inquisitive minds want to know why. There are elements of Marxism that makes the power elite quake in their shoes. This is what led me to read Marx years ago. I have been reading him ever since.

Marx has helped me to comprehend why capitalists fear and loathe him. Deep down, they know that he was right. If workers understood capitalism from a Marxist perspective, not one in ten thousand would voluntarily accept their performative role in this exploitative economic system. There would be widespread conflict and social upheaval. There would be global revolution. The power elite spends trillions of dollars to maintain the façade of capitalism as a manifestation of democracy. In fact, I would argue that nothing could be more opposed to democracy than American capitalism.

The key point to understand is that capitalism, a system based upon the ruthless exploitation and commodification of workers and the relentless rape of our Earth Mother, stifles and represses democracy. Capitalists abhor all forms of egalitarianism. Marx embraced them. The mere possibility of an empowered work force troubles the capitalist’s sleep, as did the possibility of slave rebellion, albeit it small, distress the slaveholder.

Consider the vitriol, not to mention counter revolutionary forces that are levied against the alternatives to capitalism. What is their source? Who but wealthy capitalists fund America’s propaganda apparatus? Working people in the U.S. are conditioned to reflexively recoil against ideas they do not understand. They are psychologically programmed to detest that which could potentially set them free. American workers are led to believe that economic servitude and wage slavery is freedom.

Why does a government that calls itself a democracy systemically spy on its citizens? Why does it punish its whistle blowers but materially reward the vilest white-collar criminals? Why is the majority of the U.S. budget spent on funding an insatiable war machine? Why do we raise classrooms of meat puppets rather than critical thinkers and political dissidents? It is all done for the benefit of capitalists at the expense of society.

It is by these means that capitalism survives and spreads like an aggressive malignancy to every organ of the planet. Furthermore, the majority of the wealth produced by labor is subverted to prop up the capitalist system and to indoctrinate and oppress the worker. To the detriment of us all, freethinking and critical analysis are discouraged and often reprimanded in academia and elsewhere. And thus hundreds of millions of human beings are transformed into herd animals that are led to slaughter in the military and the world’s sweat shops. We celebrate our freedom and patriotism on our march to the scalding pots, singing “God Bless America.” There is no fight in us. We go too quietly and too obediently into the good night of eternity.

Yet, despite everything and the repressive weight of history, Americans still have a propensity to believe in myths and fairy tales. Hope and faith in phony leaders and bogus institutions keep us servile and docile. Irrational faith requires nothing from us. Delusion has become the norm because too many of us are incapable of grappling with reality. We can and must do better than capitalism or we are doomed to an ignominious fate.

Charles Sullivan is a Master Naturalist, community activist, and free-lance writer residing in the Ridge and Valley Province of geopolitical West Virginia. . Read other articles by Charles.

This article was posted on Saturday, December 21st, 2013 at 2:31pm and is filed under Capitalism, Democracy, Democrats, Obama, Right Wing Jerks.

Progressive Sheepdogs, Democrat Sheep: Broken Promises & the Minimum Wage

Wed, 11/13/2013 - 13:15 — Bruce A. Dixon

• minimum wage |
• progressive Democrats |
• Obamarama |
• Democrats

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon


If President Obama and his party didn't even try to deliver on their 2008 campaign promise of a minimum wage hike when they had the White House and both houses of Congress on lockdown in 2010 and 2011, what does their sudden rediscovery of the minimum wage mean now, when they know they can move nothing through Congress?  Are they and their sheepdogs, the so-called “progressive Democrats” just yanking our chain again?

Progressive Sheepdogs, Democrat Sheep: Broken Promises & the Minimum Wage 

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

As a presidential candidate back in 2007 and 2008, Barack Obama promised to ram a hike in the minimum wage through Congress by 2011. Like the president's promises to renegotiate NAFTA and enact labor law reforms to make union organizing possible again, it wasn't one of those high profile pledges he repeated at every opportunity in front of every audience. He didn't have to, that's not the way it works.

If you're a right-leaning Democrat nowadays, here's how it works: you make those kinds of promises before small audiences of labor and poor folks. From that point, it's the job of your sheepdogs, the Democrat “progressives” campaigning for you to keep the herd of your base voters in line by putting those words in your mouth a lot more often, and with a lot more emphasis than you actually place upon them. Promises are promises, after all, and promises made by the wealthy and powerful to the poor and powerless are worth exactly nothing.

Inevitably, once in office the corporate Democrat (is there any other kind?) breaks his or her promise to his poor and apart from their votes which they've already given away, powerless constituents. At this point, his other sheepdogs, the “pragmatic” Democrats wisely bark at the herd about how naïve and foolish they are, that they don't really understand how politics works, that this one president or mayor or whatever can't save them or change the world, or do much anything really.

With President Obama's popularity at an all time low, the president has rediscovered that something like 80% of the US favor not just a significantly higher minimum wage, but a minimum wage indexed to some kind of cost of living formula. Even a big majority of Republican voters are in favor of this. So the president has muttered his traditional few words about the minimum wage, and from MSNBC to Huffington Post to labor and the nonprofits, the chorus of presidential sheepdogs are baying – the president cares, the Democrats care, they want to raise the minimum wage, but the evil Republicans will want to thwart them....
The problem with this of course, is that whenever Democrats are in charge of Congress, they never try to raise the minimum wage. It's a promise they make to get elected, and something you never hear about again until they're safely in the minority again and need something to blame the evil Republicans for blocking. Let's be clear, evil Republicans did not block efforts by President Obama or Congressional Democrats to raise the minimum wage in 2010 and 2011, when they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. During that time, there were no bills introduced to raise the minimum wage. There were no presidential speeches or off the cuff presidential remarks mentioning raising the minimum wage. There was no pressure from the White House or Democrat leadership in the House or Senate to raise the minimum wage, despite the importance placed upon the president's promise by his sheepdogs, the “progressive” wing of the Democratic party.

Leading Democrats have always known that overwhelming majorities of Democrat voters want an increase in the minimum wage. But it's a campaign issue, and Democrats only campaign differently than Republicans, not govern differently.

It's worth noting that the first lady, Michelle Obama has devoted lots of time to shilling for Wal-Mart, the largest and most ruthless low-wage employer in the country. Even Fortune magazine claims Wal-Mart could substantially raise wages and benefits across the board without its shareholders taking much of a hit. But Democrat sheepdogs at MSNBC and labor won't touch the First Lady. They bark only at the evil Republicans who won't pass a “jobs bill” or a minimum wage hike or stop questioning the president's birth certificate.

Under the people-proof and democracy-proof matrix we call politics in these United States of America, the fact that Democrats overwhelmingly support jacking the minimum wage doesn't mean that elected Democrats will really even try, like the O'Jays said, to Give the People What They Want. It's just a signal for the progressive sheepdogs to start barking again, a chain with which to herd us back into line, to circle the wagons again around the White House.

It's just more progressive white noise from our black president.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. Contact him via this site's contact page, or at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

The Obama Legacy, Part 1 of Many: Why Are Obama's Trade Negotiations Secret? Because TPP & TAFTA are NAFTA on Crack & Evil Steroids

The Obama Legacy, Part 1 of Many: Why Secret Trade Negotiations? Because TPP & TAFTA are NAFTA on Crack & Evil Steroids

Wed, 12/18/2013 - 15:28 — Bruce A. Dixon

• free trade |
• TPP |
• NAFTA |
• TAFTA |
• Democrats |
• Obamarama

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Thanks to WikiLeaks, a chapter of the secret agreement being negotiated by the White House has been made public. It will enshrine corporate profits as sacred rights, above the ability of local governments to make health, safety, wage, and “buy-local” regulations, and enable corporations to patent drugs, trivial techniques, diseases and living organisms.

The Obama Legacy, Part 1 of Many: Why Are Obama's Trade Negotiations Secret? Because TPP & TAFTA are NAFTA on Crack & Evil Steroids

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

That's what NAFTA gave us: lower wages and higher unemployment on both sides of the US-Mexican border"

Back in 1995, a Democrat in the White House told us the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA would create hundreds of thousands of new US jobs.

What it actually did, along with billions in corporate welfare to Big Agribusiness, was send cheap genetically modified corn to Mexico, the land where humans first domesticated corn a thousand or two years ago. The cheap US frankenfood corn contaminated the genome of original Mexican corn varieties, and sent Mexican corn prices so low that local farmers couldn't pay their bills. Millions were driven off the land into the cities, looking for work to keep their families alive.

NAFTA also gave US subsidies to US businesses wanting to relocate to the new belt of factories along the Mexican border that sprang up to take advantage of a new and desperately cheap workforce there, and thoughtfully provided employers protection from even Mexican health & safety regulations. When those business picked up and ran to the Philippines, Bangladesh or China a few years later, unemployed Mexicans crossed into the US by the millions, again seeking to keep their families alive. The long racist tradition of a two-tier US labor market made it almost natural for employers to add a new bottom tier for immigrant labor.

That's what NAFTA gave us: lower wages and higher unemployment on both sides of the US-Mexican border. Goods and capital now cross those borders freely, people and prosperity, not so much. Now it's 2 decades later. Another Democrat in the White House wants another pair of trade treaties, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). But this time, we have two decades of experience on what these trade deals are, and how to stop them. And they can be stopped.

Though Barack Obama says they will be job-creating beasts, the terms and progress of the negotiations are classified, which means there is no LEGAL way for citizens to learn what is being negotiated. The only way the public has gained any knowledge of what's in the agreement, and how the talks are progressing has been for WikiLeaks to obtain and publish a chapter of the proposed TPP agreement.

If your name isn't Monsanto, Disney, or Goldman Sachs, it ain't good news, according to Dr. Margaret Flowers of Flush the TPP. About 600 multinational corporate lobbyists are writing the treaty, backed up by their champions, the representatives of the US government and a handful of other wealthy nations. Their job is to force the thing down the throats of relatively small and less powerful nations, who are often more directly responsive to popular pressure than the US government, and whose populations are better informed on the issues than here, where corporate media keep us well-entertained, but ill-informed, or even dis-informed.

For the record, here are just a few of the wonderful things TAFTA and TPP will do:

They will extend the length of existing copyrights and patents (they call this intellectual property) almost indefinitely, so that high prices can be extracted for existing drugs and their derivatives forever, and no works of art or science may pass into the public domain.

They will enable corporations to patent and claim “intellectual property rights” to just about anything, including surgical techniques, the genomes of living organisms and diseases, and the chemical compounds existing in natural substances, all the better to extract revenue from those of us who need to eat, wear clothes, or get sick.

They will enshrine the doctrine of “takings” into international law, sanctifying corporate profits so that governments anywhere on earth which enact wage and hour, environmental, or “buy local” laws can be successfully sued in secret courts to compensate corporations for lost current and future profits.

They will promote and sometimes require the privatization of public health, public land, public transit, and public utilities like water worldwide, to better enable the extraction of rent from people who do things like drink water, grow or eat food, travel or live indoors.

They will promote the rights of transnational investors and capital over those of local communities and the environment at every turn, and transform government into an even purer instrument of the one percent than it is now.

"The secret trade negotiations of the Obama administration are the admission of its weakness..." 

There's more, lots more than we can cover in this short article. We urge you to follow the links in this article to get a grasp of what so-called “free trade” agreements are, and what can be done to stop them, and to take some action yourself. Again, it's vital to understand that TPP and TAFTA can be stopped. Local governments, as Dr. Flowers points out, are passing resolutions to defy anti “buy-local” and other common free-trade provisions. Even some corporate Democrats are jumping, or threatening to jump the ship on this one.

The secret trade negotiations of the Obama administration are the admission of its weakness. As Obama trade representative Ron Kirk conceded, if the American public knew what its representatives were pushing in these trade talks, they'd be in overwhelming opposition. The first and last thing to remember is that although the US political system is designed and constantly refined to make it more and more democracy proof and people proof, it only works if we let it. Let's not.

It's time to stop caring what our betters don't allow, and oppose these “trade agreements” anyhow. It's time to take some action. Now.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and a state committee member of the Georgia Green Party. Contact him via this site's contact page, or at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com

Obama Approves Major Border-Crossing Fracked Gas Pipeline Used to Dilute Tar Sands

Published on Wednesday, November 27, 2013 by DeSmog Blog

Obama Approves Major Border-Crossing Fracked Gas Pipeline Used to Dilute Tar Sands

by Steve Horn 

 
Greenpeace activists from Canada, the U.S. and France placed a giant banner reading “Tar Sands: Climate Crime” blocking the giant tar sands mining operation at the Shell Albian Sands outside of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada onTuesday, September 15, 2009. (Greenpeace) 



Although TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has received the lion's share of media attention, another key border-crossing pipeline benefitting tar sands producers was approved on November 19 by the U.S. State Department.

Enter Cochin, Kinder Morgan's 1,900-mile proposed pipeline to transport gas produced via the controversial hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") of the Eagle Ford Shale basin in Texas north through Kankakee, Illinois, and eventually into Alberta, Canada, the home of the tar sands.

Like Keystone XL, the pipeline proposal requires U.S. State Department approval because it crosses the U.S.-Canada border. Unlike Keystone XL - which would carry diluted tar sands diluted bitumen ("dilbit") south to the Gulf Coast - Kinder Morgan's Cochin pipeline would carry the gas condensate (diluent) used to dilute the bitumen north to the tar sands.

"The decision allows Kinder Morgan Cochin LLC to proceed with a $260 million plan to reverse and expand an existing pipeline to carry an initial 95,000 barrels a day of condensate," the Financial Post wrote.

"The extra-thick oil is typically cut with 30% condensate so it can move in pipelines. By 2035, producers could require 893,000 barrels a day of the ultra-light oil, with imports making up 786,000 barrels of the total."
Increased demand for diluent among Alberta's tar sands producers has created a growing market for U.S. producers of natural gas liquids, particularly for fracked gas producers.

"Total US natural gasoline exports reached a record volume of 179,000 barrels per day in February as Canada's thirst for oil sand diluent ramped up," explained a May 2013 article appearing in Platts. "US natural gasoline production is forecast to increase to roughly 450,000 b/d by 2020."

Before Eagle Ford, Kinder Morgan Targeted Marcellus

Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale basin was Kinder Morgan’s first choice pick for sourcing tar sands diluent for export to Alberta. It wasn't until that plan failed that the Eagle Ford Shale basin in Texas became Plan B.
Known then as the Kinder Morgan Cochin Marcellus Lateral Project proposal, the project fell by the wayside in February 2012.

"The company’s Cochin Marcellus Lateral Pipeline would have started in Marshall County, West Virginia, and transported natural gas liquids from the Marcellus producing region of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio," wrote the Mount Vernon News of the canned project. [It] would [then] carry the [natural gas] liquids to processing plants and other petrochemical facilities in Illinois and Canada."

"Kinder Magic": More to Come?

Industry market trends publication RBN Energy described Kinder Morgan's dominance of the tar sands diluent market as "Kinder Magic" in a January 2013 article.

"These are still early days for the developing condensate business in the Gulf Coast region," RBN Energy's Sandy Fielden wrote. "Plains All American and Kinder Morgan are developing the potential to deliver at least 170,000 barrels per day of Eagle Ford condensate as diluent to the Canadian tar sand fields in Alberta by the middle of 2014."

Fielden explained we could see many more of these projects arise in the coming years.

"We have a sense that before too long there will be many more condensate infrastructure projects showing up like 'magic' in midstream company presentations."

While the industry press coverage sounds optimistic, it doesn’t account for the concurrent rise of public opposition to dirty energy pipelines and expansion plans in the fracking and tar sands arenas, so only time will tell the fate of Cochin and its kin.

© 2013 DeSmog Blog

The Incredible Sinking Obama

• 

The Note

 

The Incredible Sinking Obama

By Michael Falcone
@michaelpfalcone
Follow on Twitter

 

Nov 19, 2013 8:59am

NOTABLES

• OBAMA FACES RECORD DISAPPROVAL NUMBERS: Barack Obama has been hammered by the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act, with disapproval of his job performance reaching a career high, opposition to the new healthcare law up sharply and evidence of potential fallout in the midterm elections a year off, ABC NEWS POLLSTER GARY LANGER writes. The president’s job approval rating has fallen to 42 percent in a new ABC News-Washington Post poll, down 13 percentage points this year and 6 points in the past month to match the lowest of his presidency. Fifty-five percent disapprove — a record. And 70 percent say the country’s headed seriously off on the wrong track — up 13 points since May to the most in two years. http://abcn.ws/18KYLXq

• THE PRESIDENT’S PERSONAL IMAGE HAS SUFFERED: President Obama is also at career lows for being a strong leader (down by 15 points this year and a vast 31 points below its peak shortly after he took office), understanding the problems of average Americans and being honest and trustworthy — numerically under water on each of these, LANGER notes. Just 41 percent rate him as a good manager; 56 percent think not. And fewer than half — 46 percent — see him favorably overall, down 14 points this year to the fewest of his presidency. Fifty-two percent now view him unfavorably, a new high and a majority for the first time since he took office. http://abcn.ws/18KYLXq

• OBAMACARE’S MOST NEGATIVE RATING TO DATE: Americans by nearly 2-1, 63-33 percent, disapprove of Obama’s handling of implementation of the new health care law. And the public by 57-40 percent now opposes the law overall, with opposition up by 8 points in the past month alone. Fifty-six percent describe the cancellation of health insurance policies that are deemed substandard under the law as “mismanagement” rather than a normal startup problem. Given the breakdown of the HealthCare.gov website, a broad 71 percent favor postponing the individual mandate requiring nearly all Americans to have coverage. And the mandate’s still widely unpopular in any case; 65 percent of Americans oppose it — a majority of them, strongly. Notably, even among those who support the individual mandate, 55 percent favor delaying it. http://abcn.ws/18KYLXq

 

THE ROUNDTABLE

ABC’s RICK KLEIN: Can a Website wreck a presidency? The botched Obamacare rollout has blown a hole through the middle of President Obama’s support, all in the month after the Republican Party seemed to ruin its own image over a government shutdown and debt showdown. It’s a staggering turnabout – a new low of 42 percent on his approval rating, and career lows on the attributes (honest and trustworthy, strong leadership) that have buoyed his public career. Most troubling, perhaps, is that Obama has lost the support of independents, where his approval rating is down to 33 percent. His steepest loss in approval rating is among young adults under age 30 – one reason Mitt Romney comes out barely ahead, 49-45, in a hypothetical year-after rematch. And down the ballot, look out: Support for Obamacare makes voters more likely to oppose a particular candidate, 31-25, even in the states the president just carried a year ago.


ABC’s JEFF ZELENY: No poll comes as a surprise to President Obama, given that the White House polling operation remains one of the most robust in the city. Yet even though he’s not surprised, the findings of the latest ABC News-Washington Post survey are sobering for Democrats. The 42 percent approval rating in today’s poll is not even the most alarming number for the West Wing. If the president hopes to regain credibility and restore confidence, this is the data point that is the most worrisome: 7 in 10 Americans believe the country is headed seriously on the wrong track, which is up 13 points in the last six months. And that explains why every Democrat on the ballot next year is sweating.


ABC’s MICHAEL FALCONE: “I really just would like to be there, I would like to see Mitt there. There are so many things that I would like to have seen been addressed right now,” Ann Romney recently told CNN when asked how she feels about not being in the White House right now. Turns out, she’s not alone. If the 2012 presidential election were being held today instead of just over a year ago, 49 percent of registered voters would lean toward supporting Mitt Romney compared to 45 percent who would back President Obama, according to today’s ABC News-Washington Post poll. The change of heart on the part of some voters is no doubt driven by the angst — and anger — over the problem-plagued rollout of the Affordable Care Act. In fact, the poll shows that in the states that backed Mitt Romney in 2012, Americans by a 46 to 15 percent margin, say they’re more inclined to oppose than to support a candidate who favors the law — a troublesome data point for vulnerable Democrats in 2014.


ABC’s ABBY PHILLIP: Public support for same sex marriage is at an all-time high according to a recent Gallup poll, the Supreme Court invalidated parts of the Defense of Marriage Act earlier this year, and more states than ever recognize same sex marriages. Yet the Republican Party remains torn by a conservative Christian base that’s still very much powerful and the desire to appeal to younger, less socially ideological voters. Ultimately, however, what made Liz Cheney’s public disagreement with her sister Mary Cheney so surprising is that the political necessity of today appears to have outweighed the power of her personal relationships. “We are reaching the point where there are a lot of people out there who are simply finding it rather incredible that—when an individual who is extremely close to someone who is in a same sex marriage—that that person would oppose legal same sex marriage,” said Liz Mair, a Republican communications consultant who is affiliated with the Freedom to Marry campaign. When Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, announced earlier this year that he supported same sex marriage, it was because of the influence of his gay college-aged son. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., is a rare House Republican supporter of same sex marriage; her daughter is a transgender LGBT activist. In the end Cheney’s remarks may not have been a departure from Republican dogma, but it surprised many who expected her to take the public view of her own father, who supports same sex marriage in light of her sister Mary’s marriage.

BUZZ

ANOTHER EARLY SIGN OF PROBLEMS WITH OBAMACARE ROLLOUT. 

A document uncovered by Congressional investigators indicates that senior administration officials at the White House and Department of Health and Human Services were made aware of the concerns about meeting the October 1 launch date and the inability of developers to complete end to end testing as early as March during presentations conducted at the request of the administration by McKinsey & Co., ABC’s JOHN PARKINSON notes. The Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigation into the rollout of the health care law has uncovered documents showing Secretary Sebelius received this briefing on April 4, but two weeks later on April 18 she testified at the Energy and Commerce Committee that development was “on track and the contracts have been led and we are monitoring it every step along the way…I can tell you we are on track.”