By Greg Palast

Psst! George Bush has a secret.

While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA Three: the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.

You’re not supposed to know that – for two reasons:

First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics. Well, it is a monument to Bush’s leadership: The city still looks like Dresden 1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or wandering lost and broke in America.

The second reason Bush has kept this major summit a virtual secret is its real agenda. More important, the agenda-makers, the guys who called the meeting, must remain as far out of camera range as possible: The North American Competitiveness Council.

Never heard of The Council? Well, maybe you’ve heard of the counselors: the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27 other multinational masters of the corporate universe.

And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a three-nation pajama party? Their term is “harmonization.”

Harmonization has nothing to do with singing in fifths like Simon and Garfunkel. Harmonization means making rules and regulations the same in all three countries. Or, more specifically, watering down rules – on health, safety, labor rights, oil drilling, polluting and so on - in other words, any regulations that get between The Council members and their profits.

Take for example, pesticides. Wal-Mart and agri-business don’t want to reduce the legal amount of poison allowed in what you eat. Solution: “harmonize” US and Canadian pesticide standards to Mexico’s.

Can they do that? Can Bush just say, “Eat your peas – even if they’re radioactive?” Under NAFTA, at least the way George Bush reads it (or has it read to him), he can. At any rate, he does.
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Says Bringing Change To America Requires ‘Guts, Some Determination and Some Fight’
Points Out That He ‘Has Never Taken A Dime From A Washington Lobbyist Or Special Interest PAC’

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Senator John Edwards took his presidential campaign to Los Angeles yesterday, speaking to a crowd of about 1,000 at the Southern California Public Service Workers’ headquarters. While Edwards spent the bulk of his nearly 20 minute speech going after special interests, corporations and lobbyists, he also took a few shots, without naming anyone, at his main Democratic challengers:

“You don’t bring about change by shuffling papers, and you don’t bring about change by just giving a speech. We have to actually have some guts, some determination and some fight if we want to bring the change that America so desperately needs.”

Edwards also said that he was the “underdog” and challenged the crowd to start a grassroots movement on his behalf that will spread across the country like a “tidal wave of change.”

Video.

This week the Senate will likely vote to approve the Peru Free Trade agreement, an extension of NAFTA. The following article published on Grassroots Global Justice makes a strong case against free trade agreements:

It is clear that only a few are reaping the benefits of “free” trade agreements (FTAs). Over the past two decades FTAs have created a class of super-rich individuals and extremely powerful corporations. They have disrupted the culture and livelihoods of millions of people, forcing many to leave their homes, and driven many into severe poverty.

On a daily basis, the vast majority of people throughout the world are struggling to survive–to make a living from the land, to earn a livable wage, to protect our health and environment, to assure access to water, housing and basic services. The strategies used to deny us these basic human rights are embedded in FTAs.

In fact, there is nothing free about FTAs. Communities and nations are subjected to the will of multi-national corporations, who sack our natural and human resources, eliminate laws that make corporations accountable, and wrest authority from our governments to provide basic services. The vision of George W. Bush and other “free” traders is that private corporations own the seeds and the food that they create, water and the infrastructure that carries it, medicines and the hospitals that administer them. The ultimate goal is not to eliminate poverty, and promote global prosperity and well-being, but to make every aspect of our lives into a source of profit for corporations.
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Think Progress

In January, pursuant to current law, all “federal civilian workers will get a 2.5 percent across-the-board raise.” Additionally, “workers living in more expensive regions of the country” are supposed to “receive an additional raise of 12.5 percent.” But President Bush ordered today that the raises for those workers will be slashed significantly:

On average, workers who live in such metro areas were due to receive an additional raise of 12.5 percent. Bush is cutting that added bump to 0.5 percent.

That means that workers scheduled to receive pay differentials will now receive a total pay raise of 3 percent, not 15 percent, on average.

Bush said he was taking action because the scheduled pay raises would exceed his budget by $12.7 billion next year, and only compound in later years.

This isn’t the first time Bush has cut the pay of low-level federal staffers. In July, he issued a pay cut for “those at the bottom of the White House staff pay scale,” while awarding a $2,800 raise to Karl Rove.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Ways and Means Approves US-Peru FTA
The measure now moves to the House Floor for consideration by the body on Thursday Nov. 8.

Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) offered the following opening remarks during today’s markup:

I want to reinforce the importance of the changes that took place in our American trade policy earlier this year to make it clear that, at the end of the day, no matter what agreement we are talking about, certain basic principles would be included in a bipartisan way. The inclusion of core standards for labor and important environmental protections, including an historic agreement on logging and greater access to life-saving medicines represent the culmination of a decade-long effort to incorporate these principles into the text of US trade agreements. By including these provisions, we make it possible for members to consider these agreements on their merits and substance, rather than feel as though they have been excluded from the process.

Unfortunately all major labor and environmental groups in the United States and Peru oppose the passage of this agreement. While there were “steps forward” in the areas of environmental protections and workers rights there is still a broad base of Americans that know this trade agreement is bad for the middle class of this country and worse for the poor of Peru. There is no longer an opposition party I am afraid and corporations come before citizens in the minds of law makers. Help us stop it!

Please Contact your Representative via email and phone

The 2006 elections clearly demonstrated that the public wants a new model for trade. While the Peru Free Trade Agreement includes some significant improvements regarding labor and environmental protections and access to medicines, it still contains many of the NAFTA/CAFTA problems.

- The Peru FTA contains a NAFTA/CAFTA-style foreign investor chapter that promotes off-shoring and subjects our domestic environmental, zoning, health and other public interest policies to challenge directly by foreign investors in foreign tribunals. It allows challenges by foreign investors in foreign tribunals of timber, mining, construction and other concession contracts with the U.S. federal government, and affords foreign investors greater rights than those enjoyed by U.S. investors.
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The Financial Times headline this morning says it all: “Edwards’ Attack on Peru Deal Shifts Debate.” The story summarizes John Edwards (D) announcement that he is opposing not only the Peru Free Trade Agreement, but the entire package of White House-backed deals designed to expand the job-killing, wage-destroying NAFTA trade model into South America and Asia - the package of deals that a small handful of Democrats endorsed back on May 10th in a secret pact with the Bush administration. Edwards said the agreements do “not meet my standard of putting American workers and communities first, ahead of the interests of the big multinational corporations, which for too long have rigged our trade policies for themselves.” The move, consistent with Edwards’ economic populist campaign, drives a wedge right through the heart of the Democratic presidential primary.

Last week, as noted here on this site, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) announced his support for the Peru deal, and then tried to obfuscate his position under harsh questioning. Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) hasn’t said anything about the Peru deal.

As Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach said, Edwards move now puts the spotlight on the divide between the progressive movement and what I have called the Money Party (and Edwards has called the Corporate Democrats).

“This is where the rubber hits the road and we find out how far Hillary thinks she needs to go on trade to court the Democratic base,” she said. “Peru is about to go to a Senate vote so she can’t duck the issue.”

You can be sure we’ll be hearing a lot of noise about how this deal is supposedly great for average Americans and Peruvians alike. But remember, no major labor, human rights, anti-poverty, environmental, consumer protection or religious group in either the United States or Peru have endorsed the deal. In its international version (not online) the Financial Times, in fact, points out that Edwards announcement was welcomed by, among others, “the heads of Peru’s labor movement and Pedro Barretto, the country’s archbishop.”

Iowa is a state that has been hard hit by lobbyist-written trade deals and that has a history of trade/globalization issues roiling presidential primaries. Edwards’ move will likely ensure that’s the case again this year, especially considering how split the the Democratic cardidates are in terms of their allegiances to the progressive movement and the Money Party in Washington.

FRIENDLY REMINDER: To the conspiracy theorists, let me reiterate what I have said often in the past: I do not work for nor get paid by nor have officially endorsed any candidate. Please debate the issue, rather than whipping up wild theories unsubstantiated by any evidence.

Associated Press

DETROIT - In the end, the first nationwide strike against General Motors Corp. in 37 years came because the United Auto Workers want something that GM will find difficult to promise: Job security.

UAW officials said the 73,000 UAW members who work at about 80 U.S. facilities for the nation’s largest automaker didn’t strike Monday over what many thought would trip up the talks: A plan to shift the retiree health care burden from the company to the union. They said they also didn’t strike over wages.

They said union members walked out because they want GM to promise that future cars and trucks such as the replacement for the Chevrolet Cobalt small car or the still-on-the-drawing board Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric car will be built at U.S. plants, preserving union jobs.

The strike puts GM, which is restructuring so it can better compete with Asian automakers, in a bind as some of its new products begin to catch on with consumers. But it also means workers are taking a big risk — giving up pay and slowing down GM in an uncertain economy.

“Job security is one of our primary concerns,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told reporters Monday afternoon after talks broke off and the strike began. “We’re talking about investment and we’re talking about job creation” and preserving benefits, he said.

Talks resumed a short time later as sign-carrying picketers marched outside plant gates.

Worker Anita Ahrens burst into tears as hundreds of employees streamed out of a GM plant in Janesville, Wis., just after the strike began at 11 a.m. EDT.

“Oh my God, here they come,” said Ahrens, 39. “This is unreal.”
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Firedoglake

Congratulations on swallowing Bob Murray’s cuddly patriarch act so easily. Now three others have died and it’s apparent that maybe you should have been asking questions from the start about Murray’s history as a union-hating loon and whether his concern for the safety of the mineworkers was quite the priority it should have been.

Digby recommends, watch Harlan County, USA.

Metro Times Detroit
by Larry Gabriel

Real opportunities to nationalize health insurance in the United States only come around once in a while. The last time was in 1993, when a plan by then-first lady Hillary Clinton was trashed by corporate opposition.

Now is the best chance since then. Most Americans agree that the system doesn’t work; our industries are crippled with ever-increasing health costs; and, with a presidential campaign looming over the political landscape, activists need to seize the moment.

That’s why the United Auto Workers union should use its national contract negotiations to get General Motors, Ford and Chrysler to join the fight in earnest.

About four years ago UAW President Ron Gettelfinger called a press conference at the union’s Detroit headquarters to talk about our health care crisis: Costs were spiraling out of control, 45 million Americans were uninsured. Gettelfinger proposed a national single-payer health insurance program as the solution.

“Nobody’s talking about that,” said a reporter from one of the daily papers. Actually, a lot of people were talking about it back then. The mainstream press just wasn’t paying much attention to them.

Today, even a head-in-the-sand corporate reporter couldn’t help but notice the conversation on health care reform — from the nearly two-thirds of Americans who support the idea of a national single-payer plan to Congress where Rep. John Conyers is getting attention for the National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676, which he introduced in 2003.

Health care is the top domestic issue in the United States, and the No. 1 issue in the 2007 national contract negotiations between the UAW and GM. In fact, health care costs have been the most contentious issue at the bargaining table for most contract negotiations in recent years. Unfortunately it’s usually an attempt by the Big Three to dump their costs onto workers.
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