Bush's War on Workers

[Omaha Steve]

http://laborrightsblog.typepad.com/international_labor_right/2008/04/bushs-war-on-wo.html

Bama Athreya, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Forum

Why, exactly, is the Bush Administration in such a huge rush to pass the US-Colombia Free TradeColombiaftaprotesters2 Agreement, and why is Speaker Pelosi getting so much flak from the news media for her delaying tactics? It was a relief this morning to pick up my New York Times and see, finally, some careful analysis of the ongoing violence against trade unionists in Colombia, after so much media commentary suggesting this was somehow a fake issue.



The violence is real; less so the Administration's shameless use of the global security card as justification for the need for rapid passage of this agreement.

Let me raise a few points here that our readers won't get from the pages of the Wall Street Journal, or even the New York Times:

First, we already have a trade deal with Colombia. This so-called 'free trade' agreement is just a different set of rules, to replace the current set of rules. Not better or worse, and certainly no more 'free,' just a different set of rules. Editorial boards of major papers should read the details before jumping in to suggest that we are somehow withholding access to our markets by failing to pass this particular deal.

Colombia is no more or less deserving of a rewritten trade deal than any number of countries around the world with which the US trades. There is no more urgency for this deal than for any of the others the Administration is currently proposing. Nor is there any particular political security risk that this particular set of trade rules would help forestall (again, read the details of the deal, editors). One would think that after the debacle of US foreign policy in Iraq and indeed throughout the Middle East and South Asia, journalists, editors and media commentators would be just a little more skeptical of this Administration's playing of the global security card? This trade deal will make us all safer in our beds, how? The truth is, this deal will help bolster a regime in Colombia that has been notoriously bad on human rights. The US has pursued this type of policy in Latin America before, and it has made us no safer as a nation.

FULL story at link.

[Trajan]

1. It has always been a mistake to define 'Bush' as the only problem here ...

This is a CONSERVATIVE philosophy .... a CONSERVATIVE implementation .... a CONSERVATIVE cause ....

Bush is lame duck, and while he is despicable as the head of the nation, he will be out of the picture soon enough, and all his CONSERVATIVE friends will continue on with the same crap, and all these complaints about 'Bush' will fall to the wayside ....

STOP focusing on Bush ... focus on the PARTY ... the CONSERVATIVES ....