for that matter, which side is the Democratic Party on? is your candidate a "corporatist"? is your Party? i know you've heard the term thrown around. if you're not sure exactly what the term refers to, keep reading.
the article below lays out the big picture about as clearly as the case can be made. if you've heard all the talk about buzzwords like globalization and free trade but never really stopped to understand exactly what it meant, this thread is for you.
for those of you supporting a specific candidate, it would be very helpful if you could provide some some details about how your candidate feels about the issue of trade. how have they voted; what have they said; what leadership have they demonstrated? what we're in here is a global war not between terrorists and the "democratic" nations of the West; not between one nation state and another, but rather between human beings and powerful trans-national corporations that have only profits, not people, as their objective.
in the article below, a case is made that globalization, including its infrastructure like the WTO, NAFTA, GAAT and others "agreements", has enabled a sort of super-structure of trans-national corporations to strip away national sovereignty and the democratic rights of global citizens. laws we might desire to protect our food supply or our air or laws to lower healthcare costs or laws to protect workers rights can be overruled by the trans-national overlords. this is not Marxist dogma or "far lefty" rhetoric. we are starting to see laws that privatize the production of seeds for the food we eat. one company could own the vegetables and another could own the fruits.
so, having said that, what Democrats understand the stripping away of our sovereignty and the end of our Constitutional freedoms that free trade is bringing? what role did Bill Clinton have in either enabling or fighting against these corporate forces during his Presidency? and which candidates, today, understand what's really at stake? you've got a candidate you're backing? educate us.
source:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/25/1439/Globalization and Democracy: Some Basics (very long but very worthwhile)
by Michael ParentiThe goal of the transnational corporation is to become truly transnational, poised above the sovereign power of any particular nation, while being served by the sovereign powers of all nations. <skip> With international “free trade” agreements such as NAFTA, GATT, and FTAA, the giant transnationals have been elevated above the sovereign powers of nation states. These agreements endow anonymous international trade committees with the authority to prevent, overrule, or dilute any laws of any nation deemed to burden the investment and market prerogatives of transnational corporations. These trade committees–of which the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a prime example—set up panels composed of “trade specialists” who act as judges over economic issues, placing themselves above the rule and popular control of any nation, thereby insuring the supremacy of international finance capital. This process, called globalization, is treated as an inevitable natural “growth” development beneficial to all. It is in fact a global coup d’état by the giant business interests of the world.
Elected by no one and drawn from the corporate world, these panelists meet in secret and often have investment stakes in the very issues they adjudicate, being bound by no conflict-of-interest provisions. Not one of GATT’s five hundred pages of rules and restrictions are directed against private corporations; all are against governments. <skip>
Free trade agreements, including new ones that have not yet been submitted to the U.S. Congress have been consciously planned by big business and its government minions over a period of years in pursuit of a deregulated world economy that undermines all democratic checks upon business practices. The people of any one province, state, or nation are now finding it increasingly difficult to get their governments to impose protective regulations or develop new forms of public sector production out of fear of being overruled by some self-appointed international free-trade panel. <skip>
To exclude the Senate from deliberations, NAFTA and GATT were called “agreements” instead of treaties, a semantic ploy that enabled President Clinton to bypass the two-third treaty ratification vote in the Senate and avoid any treaty amendment process. The World Trade Organization was approved by a lame-duck session of Congress held after the 1994 elections. No one running in that election uttered a word to voters about putting the U.S. government under a perpetual obligation to insure that national laws do not conflict with international free trade rulings.
What is being undermined is not only a lot of good laws dealing with environment, public services, labor standards, and consumer protection, but also the very right to legislate such laws. Our democratic sovereignty itself is being surrendered to a secretive plutocratic trade organization that presumes to exercise a power greater than that of the people and their courts and legislatures. What we have is an international coup d’état by big capital over the nations of the world. Globalization is a logical extension of imperialism, a victory of empire over republic, international finance capital over local productivity and nation-state democracy (such as it is). <skip>
The free trade agreements, in effect, make unlawful all statutes and regulations that restrict private capital in any way. Carried to full realization, this means the end of whatever imperfect democratic protections the populace has been able to muster after generations of struggle in the realm of public policy. Under the free trade agreements any and all public services can be ruled out of existence because they cause “lost market opportunities” for private capital. So too public hospitals can be charged with taking away markets from private hospitals; and public water supply systems, public schools, public libraries, public housing and public transportation are guilty of depriving their private counterparts of market opportunities, likewise public health insurance, public mail delivery, and public auto insurance systems. Laws that try to protect the environment or labor standards or consumer health already have been overthrown for “creating barriers” to free trade.
What also is overthrown is the right to have such laws. This is the most important point of all and the one most frequently overlooked by persons from across the political spectrum. Under the free trade accords, property rights have been elevated to international supremacy, able to take precedent over all other rights, including the right to a clean livable environment, the right to affordable public services, and the right to any morsel of economic democracy. Instead a new right has been accorded absolutist status, the right to corporate private profit. It has been used to stifle the voice of working people and their ability to develop a public sector that serves their interests. Free speech itself is undermined as when “product disparagement” is treated as an interference with free trade. And nature itself is being monopolized and privatized by transnational corporations.
So the fight against free trade is a fight for the right to politico-economic democracy, public services, and a social wage, the right not to be completely at the mercy of big capital. It is a new and drastic phase of the class struggle that some Marxists–so immersed in classical theory and so ill-informed about present-day public policy–seem to have missed. As embodied in the free trade accords, globalization has little to do with trade and is anything but free. It benefits the rich nations over poor ones, and the rich classes within all nations at the expense of ordinary citizens. It is the new specter that haunts the same old world.
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