Category: Analysis
Response to “Watch Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Blast the Keystone Bill”
| January 12, 2015 | 8:22 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, Economy, National | Comments closed
By A. Shaw
Warren questions the integrity of reactionary senators, both GOP and DP reactionaries, who picked Keystone as the first item on the agenda for deliberation.
Sanders states the fundamental principle of the scientific opposition to Keystone.
In June 2014, Clinton gave The Globe and Mail, the big  Canadian bourgeois newspaper, this answer when asked about Keystone:
“[But] this particular decision is a very difficult one because there are so many factors at play. I can’t really comment at great length because I had responsibility for it and it’s been passed on and it wouldn’t be appropriate, but I hope that Canadians appreciate that the United States government – the Obama administration – is trying to get it right. And getting it right doesn’t mean you will agree or disagree with the decision, but that it will be one based on the best available evidence and all of the complex local, state, federal, interlocking laws and concerns.”ritygrity of reactionary senators,both
In June 2014, Clinton gave The Globe and Mail, the big  Canadian bourgeois newpaper, this answer when asked about Keystone:
“[But] this particular decision is a very difficult one because there are so many factors at play. I can’t really comment at great length because I had responsibility for it and it’s been passed on and it wouldn’t be appropriate, but I hope that Canadians appreciate that the United States government – the Obama administration – is trying to get it right. And getting it right doesn’t mean you will agree or disagree with the decision, but that it will be one based on the best available evidence and all of the complex local, state, federal, interlocking laws and concerns.”
On Keystone, Clinton bullshits. She’s a bullshiter.
Why does she bullshit on Keystone?
She must either support or oppose or bullshit Keystone.
If she supports Keystone, she will infuriate the scientific and technical sector of  US intelligentsia and the environmental movement.
If she opposes keystone, she will infuriate big business and Wall Street.
If she bullshits, neither the scientific intelligentsia nor big business is likely to be furious. Rather both sides will likely be only disappointed with her.
Watch Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Blast the Keystone Bill
| January 12, 2015 | 8:17 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, Economy, National | Comments closed

January 10, 2015

by Katie Rose Quandt
Source: BillMoyers.com
As expected, a bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline sailed through the House of Representatives for the tenth time on Friday. The bill is predicted to pass the Senate next week, but Republicans may not have enough votes to override the veto Obama has promised.
On Wednesday we got a preview of the Senate debate when the Energy and Natural Resources Committee met to vote on the bill. Before the vote, which passed 13-9, Democrats used the opportunity to express their environmental concerns, question the bill’s job-creation numbers and propose that the steel piping must be American-made. Republicans touted the pipeline as an economy-boosting job creator that will give the US energy independence. The most striking moments came when the microphone went to Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who eloquently summed up the arguments against building a tar sands pipeline directly through the United States.
Taking the environmental angle, Sen. Bernie Sanders implored his fellow senators to think of their grandchildren, who will one day ask, “What were you doing? Did you not hear what the scientific community all over the world was saying?”
Later in the hearing, Sen. Sanders proposed a four-part amendment officially recognizing the following:
“One, climate change is real. Two, climate change is caused by human activity. Three, climate change has already caused devastating problems in the United States and around the world. And, four, it is imperative the United States transform its energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the lone committee Democrat in favor of the pipeline, responded that while he agrees with parts one, two and three, “the fourth one’s a killer, Bernie.” Eventually, Sanders’ amendment was tabled.
When Sen. Warren had a chance to speak, she immediately challenged: “I want to to know why the pipeline is the very first, number one item on the agenda in this new Congress. Who does this new Republic Congress work for? Foreign oil companies or the American people?”
Here’s a rundown of some other memorable statements from senators on both sides of the aisle:
1. Using what has become something of a go-to pro-pipeline argument, Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) questioned why the bill has been stalled in Congress for six years, when “Americans won World War II in a shorter amount of time.”
2. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) described the destruction caused by a 2010 tar sand spill in her home state’s Kalamazoo River: “We still can’t fish. People along the river can’t use their property, their backyards. This is going to take tens of years to clean up.”
3. Committee Chairperson Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) stated that although she believes in climate change, I don’t agree that all the changes are necessarily due solely to human activity.” She welcomed her fellow senators to visit the Permafrost Tunnel in Alaska, to view evidence of long-term climatic shifts.
4. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) is worried about precedent: “My fear is that by making tar sands the linchpin of American energy policy, we are literally locking ourselves into a policy that fully embraces energy imports and extremely high levels of relative carbon pollution for as long as 50 years. All at a time when we should have a national policy focused on domestic production and ever cleaner fuel sources. A vote to approve Keystone sends the signal that carbon pollution and climate change are not serious economic concerns.”
5. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said the pipeline will keep electricity rates low in rural Montana: “As I was traveling one day to a rural co-op in Glasgow, Montana, there in my pickup, show up in my jeans and my jacket, they told me that if the Keystone pipeline’s approved, electric rate for their co-op will remain flat for the next 10 years. Why? Because they will supply electricity to the pump stations in the pipeline.”
6. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) spoke out for the “hundreds of communities that are home to millions of people” along the pipeline’s path. “These communities rely on the surrounding land for clean water. They also rely on the land for grazing, cattle and other economic activities … We owe it to the people and communities in this region to follow the process that’s been set in law to proceed. And that is the presidential review process … This bill short-circuits that process.”
7. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) argued that the pipeline could curb US dependence on Saudi Arabian and Venezuelan oil. “We already buy 2.5 million barrels a day from Canada … We’re being told right now that if we don’t build this line, that the price will go up. I’ve never — I don’t understand economics. I understand one thing. Security of our nation depends on us having the ability to have control of our own destiny.”
8. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) noted that the bill is “peculiar,” explaining: “I don’t know if I’ve ever recalled seeing a bill in any legislature that starts with the name of a particular company that’s the beneficiary … We’re supposed to be establishing policy here, not issuing building permits to individual companies. You know, why not write a bill to give money to Apple Computer?” King also noted that the US added 20,000 construction jobs in November, “and this project is talking about 4,000 jobs over the course of two years. They’re important jobs, absolutely, but let’s put them in the context of the overall national economy. Permanent jobs: 35. A new McDonald’s in Fargo, North Dakota, would add more than 35 jobs.
Katie Rose Quandt reports and produces for BillMoyers.com. She was previously a senior fellow at Mother Jones, and has written for America, In These Times, and Solitary Watch. You can follow Katie Rose on twitter @katierosequandt.
Response to “This is How Bernie Sanders Will Run For President”
| January 8, 2015 | 7:47 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, National, political struggle | Comments closed
by A. Shaw
Rebecca Nelson’s piece, posted below, titled “This is How Bernie Sanders Will Run For President,” is perhaps the best piece published anywhere, so far, on the mechanics of the Sanders’ campaign.
Among other things, mechanics often include:
(1) Planning and budgeting ………… (6) Paid media
(2) Fundraising………………………….. (7) Candidate activity
(3) Targeting …………………………….. (8) Opposition research
(4)  Voter contact ………………………. (9) Volunteers
(5)  Free media ………………………….(10) GOTV
Let’s look at the Sanders’ campaign, as it is presented in Nelson’s piece, from the point of view of each of these subjects.
As for planning and budgeting, Tad Devine, the top political consultant for the campaign, didn’t say, during the interview with Nelson, anything about budgeting. As for planning, Devine shows that the campaign has come a long way in working out a plan for victory.  Practice will show whether the plan is any good.
As for fundraising, Devine was completely silent. At this time, the Sanders’ campaign is widely believed to have something like $4.5 million in its bank accounts. The campaign does not accept contributions from big corporations or from super-rich individuals like the Koch brothers.
As for targeting, again, Devine was silent.  But of course the campaign is during a lot of work on targeting.
As for voter contact, Devine says it is one of three “key elements” — “extensive research, sustained voter contact, and technology for mobilization.” Devine emphasizes “sustained” voter contact rather than just contact. Devine didn’t say how the campaign will “sustain” contact, but he hints that the
“the  technology for mobilization” is also a  technology for contact. This technology enables the campaign to initiate communication with targeted voters by  accessing their cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc.
As for free media, Devine seems to think that free media will be obtained chiefly by the candidate’s style and by the campaign through the use of leaks to the press. The Clinton campaign already leaks profusely.
Nelson writes “Devine got a kick out of Sanders’s direct, unequivocating style.” Devine believes the mass of the electorate will get a kick out of “Sanders’s direct, unequivocating style” after the electorate contrasts his style with the indirect and equivocating style of Hillary Clinton.
Devine doesn’t seem to think much of spontaneous grassroots efforts to generate free media coverage or support for the candidate whether the efforts are by volunteers working with the campaign or by independent supporters. On the Left, such efforts are rare, but on the Right, they’re common.
As for paid media, this is Devine’s expertise.
He threw this out there as something he may or may not push in paid media.
“My view of campaigns is, you get in them to win,” he said. Extensive research, sustained voter contact, and technology for mobilization are key elements of that. “You bring all those things together, not to make a statement, but to make a difference in people’s lives. And the way you do that is not “ just seeking political office, but winning political office.”
In other words, it is not about  “just seeking political office, but winning political office. It’s not to make a statement, but to win.
On the Left, some people believe the aim is to lose and to flaunt the candidate’s political independence from bourgeois parties, especially the DP. So, to them, a statement is more important than a win.
As for candidate activity, Devine is specific about Bernie’s role.
“Devine also repeatedly stressed the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire, the two key early-primary states,” Rebecca Nelson writes.
“The way you get over that skepticism and not be considered a fringe candidate,” Devine said, “is by putting together the resources that you need to communicate a message, putting together a campaign mechanism that people can look at and can see that there is the capacity to run a serious campaign on the ground in the early states, through mass media, and through the new tools of politics which President Obama has succeeded so well with in two presidential campaigns,” Devine says.
Again, these “new tools” are the technologies of voter contact and mobilization.
“Though unofficial 2016 campaigning has already started for many contenders—including Sanders, who has paid visits to early-primary states—voters across the country won’t have years to personally get to know the senator. That’s why Devine would hammer the early primary states—Iowa and New Hampshire, in particular—with ‘hundreds of town-hall meetings, a format that he will be extremely comfortable in,’ ” Nelson writes.
,
As for opposition research, Devine didn’t say one word, suggesting a clean campaign.
As for volunteers, Devine talks about “technology” for mobilization, but volunteers aren’t exactly  unmobilized technology.
Devine didn’t have much to say about volunteers, because the campaign must first attract and train volunteers before it decides how to use them. Devine teaches campaign management at Harvard University as well as at other schools. He has explored the potentiality of trained and untrained volunteers in line with the tenets of the Chicago school of politics — i.e., Harold Washington, Luis Gutierrez, Rudy Lozano, Jesse Jackson, David Axelrod, Barack Obama, etc.
Devine doesn’t seem keen on the idea of a key role for volunteers, trained by the campaign, in this race.
This is too bad because the Tea Bags, like the Chicago school, are real good at attracting volunteers, training them to do key work, and deploying them in key positions.
Devine should consider hiring one of his best and brightest at Harvard or some other school where Devine teaches, to handle volunteers.
Somebody with a lot of go.
As for GOTV, Devine didn’t say anything.
                                                                  CONCLUSION
Devine is on the right track.
This is How Bernie Sanders Will Run For President
| January 8, 2015 | 7:44 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, National, political struggle | Comments closed
The Vermont senator is going for the win, and a longtime friend and veteran media consultant is already strategizing his path to victory.
November 13, 2014 The first time Tad Devine met Bernie Sanders, in 1996, the political consultant did what he does best: gave him advice for how to win.
Then a House member from Vermont running for his fourth term, Sanders was skeptical of Washington political types, of which Devine was the epitome. An experienced Democratic media strategist, Devine had worked on the campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Michael Dukakis. He told Sanders, now Vermont’s junior senator, that to keep his seat in the House, he needed to make sure that voters knew which side he was on.
“Remember, Bernie’s an independent. I’m a Democrat,” Devine told National Journal. “I asked Bernie, ‘Listen, if it’s tied between the Democrats and Republicans, are you gonna vote for Gingrich, or are you gonna vote for Gephardt for speaker?’ And he was like, ‘What, are you kidding? What, are you crazy?’ He came back full Bernie on that.”
Of course, Devine recalled, he’d vote for Missouri Democrat Dick Gephardt. Devine got a kick out of Sanders’s direct, unequivocating style, he said, and the two hit it off.
Eighteen years later, Sanders has all but announced that a presidential run is in his future—and longtime friend Devine is on board. A few months ago, the senator broached the possibility with the veteran media consultant, who, since advising Sanders’s 1996 House campaign, has worked on both Al Gore’s and John Kerry’s bids for the White House. Ever since, the two have been talking about the prospect. “I think we have a meeting scheduled sometime next week,” Devine said.
The self-proclaimed socialist is widely considered a long-shot for the Democratic nomination—though he’s an independent, he has implied he wouldn’t run as a third-party candidate so as not to play spoiler—let alone for the Oval Office. A Sanders campaign would surely move the national conversation to the left, ensuring that the progressive issues he’s championed for decades—such as wealth inequality, the outsize role of special interests in politics, and campaign finance reform—get airtime, and push Hillary Clinton, the Democratic heir apparent, to address them. Beyond that, it’s assumed, he wouldn’t gain real traction. For Devine, though, success is absolute.
“My view of campaigns is, you get in them to win,” he said. Extensive research, sustained voter contact, and technology for mobilization are key elements of that. “You bring all those things together, not to make a statement, but to make a difference in people’s lives. And the way you do that is not just seeking political office, but winning political office.”
The GOP’s midterm romp proves just how ready the country is for a politician like Sanders, Devine said. Republicans didn’t win because voters want to embrace their policies; people were voting for a different direction—and voting against President Obama.
Likely Republican presidential contenders, such as Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, have tried their hardest to tie Clinton, their assumed opponent, to Obama, whom many voters disdain. This, too, seems to be an emerging strategy for Sanders’s impending campaign.
“If a better alternative was offered,” he said, “an alternative that put people ahead of powerful interests, that made it clear who’s side of the fight you were on, that laid out a set of policies that could work in the real world, in favor of people, I think a lot of those people who voted for Republicans would make a different choice.”
Devine also repeatedly stressed the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire, the two key early-primary states. Sanders, a longtime proponent of campaign finance reform, would have a head start in those states because of the massive outside spending in the midterms there.
“People in Iowa and New Hampshire have just gone through this experience, have seen it up close in their Senate races,” Devine told National Journal. “So this isn’t gonna be some theory about how money affects politics. It’s very practical and very immediate for people in those states. And I think Bernie is really going to frame his message by talking about those things.
“Like a lot of issues he’s been talking about for a long time, they’re catching up with him,” he added. “He’s been talking about them for years, and now they’re coming into focus for people in a much more meaningful way.”
Still, a big hurdle for a Sanders campaign would be the senator’s hard-left political views. Devine admits that while Sanders is beloved in Vermont, he would face some struggle transitioning to a national stage. Devine is confident, however, that Sanders could gain not only name recognition, but also credibility as a serious contender.
“The way you get over that skepticism and not be considered a fringe candidate,” Devine said, “is by putting together the resources that you need to communicate a message, putting together a campaign mechanism that people can look at and can see that there is the capacity to run a serious campaign on the ground in the early states, through mass media, and through the new tools of politics which President Obama has succeeded so well with in two presidential campaigns.”
Devine said Sanders, a gruff man who, at 73, says what he means and could easily be described as crotchety if he didn’t talk so lovingly about his grandkids, is “easily misunderstood.” When people have the chance to really get to know Sanders, and spend time with him, “you realize why people like him,” he said. “He’s direct with them, he connects with them, he very much provides a voice for people who don’t have a lot of voice in Washington.”
Though unofficial 2016 campaigning has already started for many contenders—including Sanders, who has paid visits to early-primary states—voters across the country won’t have years to personally get to know the senator. That’s why Devine would hammer the early primary states—Iowa and New Hampshire, in particular—with “hundreds of town-hall meetings, a format that he will be extremely comfortable in.”
That, most of all, would be the key to Sanders’s success on a national stage: voters getting to know who the senator really is. Unlike Devine, though, they won’t have 18 years to do it.
90% of NYPD Arrests Unnecessary: Broken Windows Policy A Failure
| January 8, 2015 | 7:38 pm | Analysis, National, police terrorism | Comments closed

  By Angelo | January 8, 2015 – 6:20 PM | Uncategorized

 http://nymetrocommunistparty.org/?p=815

NYPD Protest

by Jessica Coco, PCUSA Women’s Commission

The “Broken Windows” theory of policing has shaped New York City since the 1990’s, with police under tons of pressure to make arrests and issue summonses for nonviolent offenses that aren’t even against the law – anything to get poor people and people of color out of public view, and make the city safe for business and real estate to jack up the rents and make middle- and upper-class New Yorkers feel safer.

Until now. This week, as a political ploy to put pressure on a mayor they say is their enemy, the NYPD has called off business as usual. The leading police union issued a memo telling all officers that “NO enforcement action in the form of arrests and/or summonses” is to be taken “unless absolutely necessary.”

The result? Arrests have dropped by 90%.

Think about that. The NYPD has just let us know that 90% of the arrests they make are unnecessary. “The reported offenses they aren’t enforcing as much are [mostly] not criminal offenses: parking violations, urination in public, public intoxication, as well as some marijuana possession. Do we really want over 4,000 people a week locked up for peeing behind a dumpster?”  asked Marc Krupanski, a program officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative, in an article in Vice Magazine.

Our members are the people who have been hit the hardest by broken windows policing. Homeless people face harassment and ticketing and arrest on a daily basis by the NYPD. The city spends billions of dollars to criminalize and persecute and arrest and try and incarcerate the poorest of the poor – but won’t spend a dime of that on getting people housing.

So we asked our members – what should New Yorkers learn from this work stoppage?

Chris: This NYPD scare tactic is idiotic. They’ve basically just said to us “90% of the work that we do is unnecessary.” All this taxpayer money being wasted to lock someone up for a bag of weed or someone peeing behind a dumpster?

Dave: So all that crap with Broken Windows was unnecessary. That was overkill. The PBA is not the Policemen’s Benevolent Association. It’s PMA – the Policemen’s Malevolent Association.

Thirteen: I talk to cops. I talk to the brass, even. Police are not down with making bogus arrests. That’s why top cops have been quitting. Unnecessary arrests just make people mad at cops. That’s why people hate cops. When I was a kid the police knew everyone in the neighborhood. We need to get back to that model of community policing.

Scott: They can do a lot with the money they save with this. A 90% reduction in the amount taxpayers spend on incarceration could pay for a lot of public restrooms… to say nothing of housing.

Maria: They need to listen to what we have to say. They’re wasting our time in courtrooms, making us miss work, getting us logged out of shelters, and now we see how unnecessary that was.

Sidat: We need to drive home that they’re not supposed to be arresting people in the first place. This is going to end – they’re going to return to business as usual. They don’t . So we need to get the public behind us to say “OK, you’ve admitted how little of what you do is about protecting people, let’s do things differently.”?
NYPD protesters

Andres: We need to hit the streets with cameras. Cop Watch. Keep them behind the law. Let them know someone is watching.

Dave: They need to apply Broken Windows to Wall Street. Everyone who steals a stapler, every banker who gets a bonus for kicking someone out of their home. Send some lawyers to jail, let some rich people feel what it feels like, and you’ll see things change pretty fast. The PBA, and individual officers, should be the ones held financially responsible for settlements of lawsuits. Having taxpayers pick up the bill for cops violating people’s rights creates no incentive on cops to behave.

Nikita: Our communities are missing so many resources. Housing, education – they need to take this money and use it in the neighborhoods they’re systematically depleting through gentrification and overpolicing, so that we can uplift ourselves.

Only tackling the root causes can end the cycle of violence
| January 8, 2015 | 7:35 pm | Analysis, International | Comments closed

by: Sam Webb

It was reported today that one of the young men who was part of the horrific and ghastly attack that killed 12 people in Paris yesterday was radicalized by the torture and brutality that occurred at Abu Ghraib. That tells me that these unforgivable atrocities (and there are many more in the Muslim world against Muslim people, including young children, that either go un- or barely reported) emanate, in the first place, from the real conditions of everyday life.

Thus any solution, if it hopes to end the cycle of violence and counter violence that grips and scars the modern world has to uproot these real conditions, that is, exploitation, oppression, poverty, racism, discrimination, torture, war, alienation, etc. and the structures, policies, and people that create and sustain them.

What won’t help – in fact, they’re a fool’s errand and a demagogue’s soundbite – are sweeping (and groundless) condemnations of Islam, or any other religion or people. Nor is the further militarization of already heavily armed police and security forces and more invasive spying an answer. Done that and it hasn’t worked either.

Nor should we hang our hopes on the projection of even greater military power in distant lands to make us safe. Look where that has got us since we launched our “War on Terror” in the wake of 9/11! And finally, let’s not turn our country into a fortress that turns immigrants into enemies and democracy and civil liberties into something that we can no longer afford.

Again and as counter intuitive as it may seem to many people at this moment when feelings are running high, only a sharp turn to peace and non-violence, to substantive equality for all, to full human solidarity and universal love, and to dissolving the real conditions that generate and reproduce violence daily and hourly, both here and around the world, stands a ghost’s chance of extricating humankind from this awful and seemingly intractable situation.

If this feels like too big challenge, too steep a hill to climb, we might want to reflect a bit on the life of Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we celebrate next week and whose commitment to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges never faltered and ultimately proved victorious.

Capitol Hill Line Up Against TPP
| January 8, 2015 | 7:33 pm | Action, Analysis, Economy, Labor, National | Comments closed

By Angelo | January 8, 2015 – 5:55 PM | Economy

 http://nymetrocommunistparty.org/?p=811

CWA President Larry Cohen speaking today at a news conference called by a coalition opposing Fast Track and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. An alliance of Big Business and White House negotiators are scrambling to push fast track authority through Congress

An amazing line-up of Members of Congress, union activists, environmental leaders, people of faith, small business and community leaders stood together on Capitol Hill today to show the broad and growing opposition to Fast Track authority for trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“America will never see a raise for American working families if we continue to make trade deals like we have in 20 years since NAFTA,” CWA President Larry Cohen said. “80% of Americans have had no raise in 30 years. . . . We have to stop trade deals that only move in one direction.”

Watch President Cohen’s remarks.

More than 18 congressional representatives and leaders from the NAACP, Food and Water Watch, Sierra Club, Consumers Union, the National Catholic Social Justice Lobby NETWORK, and other groups joined the event, calling for the defeat of Fast Track.

NETWORK’s Executive Director Sister Simone Campbell, popularly known as the leader of “Nuns On The Bus,” said the effects of our past trade deals have been coming home to roost. She pointed out that children from Central America swarmed the U.S. borders last year directly because the Central American Free Trade Agreement disrupted the economies in rural areas of those countries.

“I’m here today to oppose fast track because we know from Catholic sisters in Central America, my sisters in Mexico, that these trade agreements create a huge imbalance and disequilibrium, especially in rural communities,” she said.

An alliance of Big Business and White House negotiators are scrambling to push fast track authority through Congress. Why Fast Track enables supporters to push through trade deals which no one in Congress has read with a majority vote. In the Senate, nearly all others bills require 60 votes and most of our issues have been blocked by this super majority requirement. Yet fast track only requires a simple majority of the House and Senate.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who is leading Democratic House members in the fight against Fast Track, said she is not going to stand for a bill that allows bad trade deals to be crammed down the throats of Americans without Congress examining them. American workers, she said, have suffered great harm under the North American Free Trade Agreement and other deals like it and their representatives in Congress have the Constitutional duty to consider carefully the consequences of future deals.

“This coalition exists because trade deals affect everything. We need to be able to scrutinize the text of these deals page by page, line by line, word by word. . . . We need to read this bill as we would any piece of legislation, let alone legislation with such far reaching implications,” DeLauro said.

CWA is part of a 100- group coalition that is fighting back against Fast Track, and the next 100 days are critical. Fast Track authorizing legislation is expected to come before Congress in March.

Cohen said the road forward is daunting but winnable if the coalition functions as one.

“We’re prepared in every district to work as a coalition, not silo-ed as labor, or farmers, or consumers, or environmentalists, but together to talk about what the global economy should be and how it could work for all of us,” he said. “We are humble about what we face but we are tens of millions of Americans and we are committed that we are not going to have another raw deal on trade. We’re going to come to the 21st Century and negotiate trade deals that work for tens and millions of Americans, not just for hundreds of corporations.”

CWAers and activists from coalition members will participate in National Call-In week, beginning Jan. 26, to let members of Congress know that Fast Track must be stopped. Check out www.stopthetpp.org for more information.

Now or Never: Fight Back Against Fast Track

An unholy coalition of President Obama, Majority Leader McConnell, Speaker Boehner, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable are working together to pass Fast Track authorization for the largest trade giveaway ever, the Trans Pacific Partnership, in the next 100 days.

The president will focus on Fast Track, now known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), in his State of the Union address. McConnell will continue to announce that he will work with the White House. And make no mistake about it, the version of Fast Track or TPA that will pass the House will be Boehner Trade, acceptable to the Republican majority and its Speaker.

Overwhelmingly, House Democrats will fight back. More than three-quarters of the House Democrats have written to the president opposing Fast Track and the TPP for a multitude of reasons:

  1. Vietnam is the leading partner, with 90 million people, an average wage of 75 cents an hour, no worker rights or environmental or consumer protections and a command economy where the government and its allied organizations control virtually everything.
  2. Like NAFTA, TPP has much more to do with protecting the investment of multinational corporations, particularly those based in the US. Those investment issues dwarf lowering trade barriers. These are the very corporations that have moved millions of jobs out of the US because every trade deal since NAFTA has allowed them to sue nations that adopt legislation that limits future profits, not simply safeguards their initial investment. Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) virtually unchanged is in the TPP, and the WH defends it and brags about it to corporate audiences. Currently, multinationals have 500 pending secret arbitration lawsuits against governments regarding environmental protection, workers’ rights, health and consumer issues, to name a few.
  3. Brunei, with strict Islamic law, is another of the 12 nations in TPP. Republican conservatives are horrified by the treatment of Christians and other religious minorities there. Most of us would include homophobia, misogyny and other gross human rights violations as reason enough to avoid a major economic partnership.
  4. Currency manipulation, by central banks and controlled economies, has been a major concern of House and Senate Democrats. It is now virtually certain this will not be addressed at all in TPP.

Except for corporate management and their large shareholders, the rest of us will lose big if Fast Track is adopted, making TPP a certainty. Passing Fast Track means a guaranteed vote in the House and Senate on TPP within a short period of time and with no amendments allowed on a 2000 page Trade treaty that has been negotiated in almost total secrecy. In the Senate it means passage by a majority, not the 60 votes required on almost everything else that has blocked President Obama’s core agenda for six years, even when the House overwhelmingly supported real change from 2009-2011.

There is no point in speculating further on why the WH is collaborating with Boehner and others who have ruined the Hope and Change that the President ran on in 2008. Candidate Obama clearly stated his rejection of the Clinton and Bush trade deals, yet now he is promoting a TPP that is far more ruinous for our jobs and wage levels than its predecessors. Pay for tens of millions of Americans has been stagnant due to job export and direct pay comparisons with poorer nations, with no limits on the ability of GE or IBM, Microsoft or Amazon to export the tradable jobs or cut the pay of those that remain.
Time for action, not more talk!

  1. Virtually all Americans oppose Fast Track but we need to be organizing, shouting and fighting back, particularly with 75 swing House Democrats and Republicans. At least 190 House Democrats and Republicans will vote “No.” These 75 are key.
  2. Starting with the State of the Union address, in two weeks, we will face an avalanche from the president, Republican leaders and Big Business. We must mobilize now and like never before!
  3. Our coalition includes virtually every environmental group, labor union, and consumer organization. The WH says Walmart sells cheap goods thanks to these trade deals but most consumer groups know that TPP means less labeling and less safety for imports, and that when wages fall consumers are priced out. Immigrant rights activists know how NAFTA and CAFTA have devastated their home communities in Mexico and Central America. Community organizations and faith groups realize that the loss of millions of factory jobs has devastated most of our cities.
  4. But these broad coalitions, including conservatives who do not believe nations should trade their sovereignty for secret corporate tribunals, must mobilize now. We need Days of Action in the key communities in the swing districts. We need massive mobilization days in Washington. We need millions of emails reminding the president of what he said when he campaigned, versus the reality of this TPP, which is nothing different and in many ways is worse than NAFTA and other trade deals. We need to shout to the president, “Don’t roll your own caucus for Boehner Trade.”
  5. Organizations like my own need to commit real time and resources to this fight and not back up out of loyalty to President Obama. We have stood with him on nearly every issue but not this one. He needs to stand with us and the Democrats in Congress.

We are under attack!
What do we do?
We Stand Up and Fight Back!
Now!

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