The Working Men and Women of America
I disagree with the President.
I am against the TPP. Paul Krugman, my pretend boyfriend, says it’s not as bad as labor suspects but it’s not all that good either.
And you have to wonder why the President would break with his base at a time when Democrats need to tend to their base more than ever.
I have heard some spirited takedowns of the TPP but the President has yet to give me a reason to support it. Am I missing something?
I know this ain’t funny, but making global free trade funny is harder than it looks.
Obama has never really cared much for the Dem base. He’s spent most of his presidency trying to (unsuccessfully) win over Republicans. If instead he had spent half as much time and effort energizing the Dem base, I suspect we would still hold the house and senate and wouldn’t have lost so much ground in the states.
In any normal, sane political environment, Obama would be considered centrist, or even slightly right of center. Let’s not forget that his ACA plan was for decades a Republican proposal. He’s put Social Security on the table. He spent trillions to bail out banks and large companies while doing little to help citizens who aren’t rich. He let the Wall Street criminals and the Iraqi War criminal walk without any punishment. He’s been a big friend of the financial industry in general and has allowed wealth and income inequality to continue grow unabated. Except for his eventual reluctant support of gay rights, he has hardly been liberal or progressive. And he has done nothing — absolutely nothing — for the Democratic Party.
His support of the TPP is perfectly in line with his love of all things big business and his complete abandonment of working people. No surprise.
1Mrs. B. I have no sins to confess regarding any imaginary feelings toward Paul Krugman. Be that as it might be, I have major issues with the TPP based on the few details that have been leaked.
Huge WTH – corporations will be able to sue governments for corporations failure to achieve profits based on their expectations. Just that one ‘little’ feature of the TPP says to me that our corporate welfare system in the US has ambitions to go global on steroids.
Discussion President Obama? No, take the known BS out; take it out now. Then maybe we can discuss the rest of this secretive document. But yes, we need to discuss it and no, not only hell no, no “fast track” for without any contrary evidence is essentially a sellout package.
2Indeed. Consider the World Trade Organization’s ruling regarding “dolphin-safe” tuna:
Now, imagine the effect of the new ways corporations could use the TPP’s special court to undermine US labor and consumer safety laws. After all, melamine in pet food may kill your pet – but making it illegal to add it to pet food might (gasp) lower profits!
It’s a very bad deal – I hope Elizabeth Warren can lead the way to either making it a better one, or stopping it.
3Greedy capitalist pigs are the only winners in TPP. And I really don’t understand why they need help. It is not as if the billionaires of the world aren’t making out okay.
4Like PKM and RepubAnon, I’ve been told by groups I trust that TPP is another trade pact that will let corporations sue, in a corporate-loaded forum, if countries’ environmental laws may affect their future profits. I can’t see that as a good thing for anybody, or anything, I care about.
And can’t argue with Mark’s assessment of Obama… which shows how damn far right the GOP is to be calling him a socialist. It’s just a bogeyman word to them; they don’t know or care what it means.
5TPP stinks to high heaven. Human rights are preferable. Fair trade should be the goal, people not profits.
6@RepubAnon
7Once canned tuna became mostly dolphin-free, I didn’t like the taste of canned tuna near as much. I wonder….?
The secrecy is maddening.
8I believe you are missing something. The TPP is a way to fix some of the problems with NAFTA and with other trade agreements. I will post a series of articles here that explain a lot about it. It is not being negotiated differently than past agreements, down to the ‘fast-track’ authority. I don’t know why Sanders and Warren are trying so hard to sell this as a terrible secret trade deal when it is nothing of the sort. It’s not perfect, no deal involving so many countries could be. But it will definitely be better than we have now. We are also negotiating a similar deal with European countries that no one seems that worried about. I don’t know what Krugman’s arguments are. I know that Reich forcefully supported NAFTA and ‘fast-track’ authority for President Clinton. Unless he’s saying he’s sorry for that, I wouldn’t trust him. I like Krugman, but sometimes he comments on politics and he’s not very good on politics. Anyway, I’m surprised that so many Obama supporters so easily believe that he would betray everything he’s fought for in his career, always working for the working person and the marginalized person. We basically wouldn’t have a middle class today without his stimulus package, his auto industry bail out, his health care act, and I could go on and on. Since he funded his campaigns with small donations and the corporate supporters he did have basically abandoned him in the 2012 election and he has no more elections to run, I don’t know why he would destroy his legacy by pushing for a bad trade deal. Anyway, I hope these articles are informative for you. I always enjoy your website very much.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/3/17/the-tpp-education-project-preface-fast-track-secret-deal-nafta
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/3/18/the-tpp-education-project-jobs-and-labor
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/3/26/the-tpp-education-project-ip-an-intelligent-look-at-intellectual-property
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/3/16/tripping-over-tpp-elizabeth-warren-flat-out-lies-seeking-to-derail-progressive-trade-pact
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/5/1/tpp-wont-allow-corporations-to-weaken-public-safety
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/3/19/is-robert-reich-a-republican-by-trade
9Interesting. The main thing I don’t like about the TPP is that nobody can go poke around in it. I was planning to hop the next train to D.C. to spend a week or so reading the TPP….
Thanks to all for your comments.
10Obama is just trying to be the best Republican president since Clinton.
11Thank you Mary Lynne, I haven’t heard anything but negative voices. Its good to hear the positives.
12Although the controversy surrounding the TPP is concerning, I firmly believe in President Obama’s dedication to restoring the middle class. He has accomplished a great deal in the face of unprecedented opposition, and has attempted to raise the minimum wage by raising the wage for federal workers, provided healthcare to people who previously could not afford it, saved the economy from complete collapse (including our pensions invested by those big banks), attempted to pass sensible gun restrictions and pushed for climate change improvements. He freely admits there is more to be done, but given the control the republicans have over the Congress,
13has had to choose his battles. Calling him a Republican president is patently unfair.
It’s a difficult issue, made more difficult by its simplicity.
It’s not just the U.S. cutting a deal with South Korea. There are a bunch of nations involved, including our old (since sometime after WWII) ally Japan, and China.
And, you can tell JuanitaJean, China intends to sign that sucker to increase trade with everybody in the Pacific. If the U.S. wishes to back out and give China the edge with every Pacific Rim nation, well, that will just widen the grins in Beijing.
Train leaves the station at some point. Question is, will our trade deals be on it, or will we get left behind.
Listen to Krugman. We need to press our government to be sure there are tough protections for the environment, and for people in those agreements — especially protections for labor and jobs and the general standard of living a paying job provides.
You think the GOP would do anything on those scores?
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