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protections," rather than saying that he will act to rescind NAFTA on Day One of his administration, and start over with regard to U.S. trade policy, leaves himself open to this charge--the charge of lying.
Does Obama think that the American people have NO MEMORY? Bill Clinton promised "labor and environmental protections" in NAFTA in his 1992 campaign, and did exactly the opposite--signed it with NO such protections--once in office. Personally, I remember this well. It's WHY I voted for him, dupe that I was. And I don't think I was all that a-typical of voters at the time. It was a major issue in the campaign. And we fell for warm-fuzzy assurances. There was also the rather major problem that we had NO CHOICE. Time magazine put Clinton on its cover as the next President of the United States well before most primaries had occurred. Our rotten to the core political/corporate establishment had chosen him as their "free trade" (global corporate piracy) champion, and that was that. So whether or not we had wise little voices in our heads, whispering, "he's lying, he's lying, he's lying," didn't matter. It came down to Clinton vs. Oil Cartel/CIA. What's to choose? Funny how it turns out that Clinton was better for the Oil Cartel than Bush-I could have been. "Free trade" requires LOTS OF OIL. And grabbing Iraq's oil was not yet ripened on the tree.
Anyway, dog meat to the masses--"labor and environmental protections"! Yeah, right. Tell us another one.
The same with Hillary Clinton, as with Obama--although there is somewhat more reason to believe that her promises on "labor and environmental protections" in NAFTA are total bullshit. Obama is more of an unknown (although he voted for the Peru "free trade" deal, did he not?). ARE THEY LYING? It is highly likely that Clinton is. And it is a bit less likely that Obama is--but still in the likely category. So, when some report like this occurs--whether it's true or not (and god knows, these days, what you can believe in this corporate-run, delusional political atmosphere)--it can have cache with the voters. And that is especially true if Obama is NOT LYING. Because there's your motive for this "anonymous" story.
In fact, this story--which smells of psyops--makes little sense if Obama is NOT LYING, that is, if he really intends to promote "labor and environmental protections." What better way to plant doubts in some voters minds--with a story that he cannot prove wrong (because the supposed Obama aid remains anonymous)?
But my point is that, if Obama had a strong, unassailable--un-Bill-Clinton-like--position on NAFTA, he would be much less vulnerable to such a story. That his position IS Bill Clinton-like makes him less trustworthy.
One more point: If the contact with the Canadian embassy has any truth to it at all, the anonymity of the campaign aid and the Canadians in the embassy who supposedly received the call, makes it impossible to know what the nuances of the conversation may have been. For instance, there is a big difference in the impacts of Canada-US trade and the impacts of Latin America-US trade. In the former, the US is dealing with a country that has stronger labor protections in place than, say, the rightwing-run Mexico. The incentive of avoiding labor protections is far less. Maybe THIS was the campaign worker's point (if the conversation took place at all)--that Obama wasn't so concerned about Canada-US trade--that it was the much more uneven situation of Latin American vs US labor that was his concern. That would be less damning--in fact, not really damning at all. But we can't know, because it's all anonymous.
If Obama were stronger, more definitive, more clearly a champion of the majority, and more uncompromising about reform, charges like this would be laughed at. They would roll right off the voters' backs. As it is, he is attackable this way--by psyops, by stealth, by lies, by "swift-boating." He is, however, in a different political situation then Kerry (a better one), and has much more enthusiastic grass roots support, because of his early stand against the war. He will probably weather it (and more)--and maybe deserves to (hard to know).
But if I were his advisers, I would recommend stronger language--such as a "total re-thinking of NAFTA and 'free trade'"--not just amending existing agreements, but strongly re-asserting the "sovereignty of the people" in relation to global corporations, re-aligning the U.S. in relation to the WTO and the World Bank and a host of other global corporate financial weapons against workers and the poor. Similarly, I would recommend stronger language about the war--regarding our "military-industrial complex" dependence on big military budgets, and Bushite "doctrines"--such as Bush's announcement of a policy of pre-emptive war, at West Point, in 2002, in violation of our laws and everything we hold dear--and regarding our dependence on oil, the real driver of the Iraq War. He would double his votes, I swear. And then we would truly be able to outvote the machines.
We need to learn to analyze corporate-propagated "news" flaps like this quickly and thoroughly. That is what I'm trying to do here. We know psyops are at work. Don't just let psyops hand grenades fall amongst us "out of nowhere," and run like hell to get out of the way. Be faster at grasping what it is (IS it psyops?), whether it's fake or real, whether it matters even if it is real (if this thing is true--that an AIDE said this--does that mean I should vote for Clinton?), who benefits from it, and who lobbed it--and be vigilant (as vigilant as we can be) about investigating the latter questions. Who benefits? Who lobbed it?
In short, take NOTHING that you read/see in the corporate "news" monopolies as true. Dig deeper. Read between the lines. Think hard. And then think harder. What is really going on here? And what does it have to do with the American people taking their country back?
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