Bread and Roses by The Rogue

Groucho Marx told a great joke about being caught in bed with a married woman by her husband. Groucho claims that he escaped the husband's potentially-fatal wrath by totally befuddling him.

Audaciously denying the obvious, Groucho demanded, "Who are you going to believe--your own eyes or what I tell you?"

PUBLIC HAS SEEN ENOUGH, THANK YOUR VERY MUCH

When 109 House Democrats voted with the Bush Administration to approve yet another "free trade" agreement with Peru, they were cynically calling upon working Americans to disregard what their own eyes have told them about the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico, the model for the Peru deal.

These House Democrats and Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would like to convince us that we are watching the passage of a "trade" agreement. (John Edwards expressed his strong opposition). They know that if they called the deal what it really is--another green light for the outsourcing of US jobs--they would have almost no support among working Americans.

A Pew Research Center poll released in September, 2006 showed 77% of Americans opposed to the outsourcing of US jobs. Opposition to NAFTA-style trade deals (a description that surely fits the Peru agreement) has even been rising among high-income Americans, with the University of Maryland finding 55% opposition among those earning more than $110,000 a year.

But by substituting the mantra of "free trade" for a more accurate label of "job outsourcing," Clinton, Obama, and the 109 House Democrats are counting on Americans ignore the empty factories and crumbling and inner cities they view every day, as a result of massive US job losses resulting from NAFTA.

UNFULFILLED PROMISES
Contrary to what Bill Clinton and other free-trade advocates promised, NAFTA did not promote genuine trade with Mexico.

The slight lowering of tariffs, combined with protections for US investments in Mexico, was supposed to increase the supply of jobs as US firms would supposedly be able to sell more products to Mexico, and thus hire more US workers. While 66 major corporations proclaimed that NAFTA would result in increased employment in their US facilities, 61 actually slashed jobs in the US.

Despite all the "free trade" rhetoric, NAFTA merely provided iron-clad protections for corporations and investors who wanted to annex Mexico as a low-wage suburb for US firms.

MEANINGLESS LABOR PROTECTIONS

Meanwhile, labor and environmental safeguards in "side agreements" have been totally ignored when union organizers are fired or arrested and as environemental problems have intensified.

As with NAFTA, the Peru trade deal includes some "fig-leaf" provisions that are supposed to serve as "labor protections." Reps. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Sander Levin (D-Mich.)--once seen as dependable allies of workers, but now tainted by their central role in ramming through this deal-- have claimed that the labor protections in this deal are incorporated directly in the agreement, not in weak side agreements.
'Vague, undefined, and unenforceable '
However, Columbia Prof. Mark Barenberg notes that the agreement only commits Peru and the US to "vague, undefined, and unenforceable labor 'principles' and their own domestic laws." Moreover, the Peru deal contains sanctions for labor-law violations that are weaker than existing trade laws.

An estimated 70% of the trade with Mexico consists of intra-firm transfers within the same US-based firm. In other words, components made in the US by, say, GE, are shipped to Mexican "maquiladora" plants for assembly in low-wage (80 cents to $1 an hour is a typical border wage) GE plants and then "exported" back to the US.

WAGES DROP ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER
Industrial wages on both sides of the US-Mexican border have declined since NAFTA went into effect, with Cargenie Endowment estimating a 24% drop in Mexico. The Economic Policy Institute has documented over 900,000 NAFTA-related job losses in the US.

RETRAINING NO SOLUTION
Of every 100 workers displaced by mass layoffs like those caused by NAFTA, 73 will face a significant drop in earnings or be forced to retire, according to Louis Uchitelle, author of The Disposable American. Only 27 regain or improve upon their old standard of living. Retraining programs, the favored "get-well" card of the New York Times (see 11/8/07 editorial exhorting the Democrats to vote for the Peru deal) and others backing the corporate agenda of shifting jobs and investment overseas, delivers little meaningful help to displaced workers.

But NAFTA, by providing a huge supply of low-wage labor and investment guarantees, has been good for the tiny circle of US citizens who really matter. NAFTA boosted the profits and CEO pay of US-based corporations. For example, in one year, then-GE CEO Jack Welch earned $92 million, more than his 15,000 serfs employed in GE plants in Mexico.

The vote on the Peru trade agreement it exposes the emptiness of Obama's campaign for "change. What happened to his old speeches from his 2004 Senate race about the plight of displaced industrial workers in southern Illinois? Seemingly terrified of veering too far from Clinton's program, Obama is offering very little reason for his followers to take him seriously when he talks about reshaping America.

Given that Hillary Clinton is the front-runner with a double-digit lead, her position on the Peru trade deal is yet another sign of how little she differs from the Republicans on issues of substance like the continued occupation of Iraq, the preparations for war against Iran on specious grounds, and the vast inequality and environmental degradation deepened by corporate globalization. In particular, Clinton's stance reveals the hollowness of her rhetoric asserting that "globalization must work for working Americans." Instead, it reflects a consistent pattern of backing corporate globalization.

The only exceptions occur when a signficiant portion of Corporate America opposes a particular deal, as when she fell into line only after the auto industry took a stand against the proposed trade deal with South Korea. But thus far, Clinton's stance on issues have mattered far less in the polls than her image as someone who rouses the ire of Republicans, thereby suggesting that she represents a major threat to the interests of the powerful.

Paradoxically, Clinton is by far the most conservative of the Democratic candidates at a time when polls and public statements indicate that the base of the Democratic Party is infuriated with the congressional wing's surrender on issue after issue.

THIS IS A PARTY OF OPPOSITION?

Almost every day, we are confronted with the reality that the Democrats are not a party of serious opposition to the Bush agenda. This sad reality is reinforced by the reluctance to shut off the flow of funds for continued occupation of Iraq, the confirmation of Michael Mukaysey as attorney general despite his support of virtually absolute presidential powers and his unwillingness to brand waterboarding as torture, and even retreating from a long-awaited resolution on Turkey's genocidal war against Armenians in 1915 because it threatened to inconvenience Bush's never-ending war against Iraq.

This latest capitulation to Bush on the Peru trade deal, like NAFTA in 1993, shows once again the leading Democrats' contempt for both the economic suffering of their traditional blue-collar base and the vast majority opposition to corporate globalization.

But three questions remain:

First, will Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have to pay a price for their very tangible support of corporate globalization when the chips are down?

Second, will such surrenders to the corporate agenda once again, as in 1994, convince the public that the Democrats are barely distinguishable from the Republicans? Many Democratic-leaning citizens could conclude that voting for the Democrats is an exercise in futility, thus disastrously driving down the turnout of Democrats' core constituencies.

Third, the nomination of a right-of-center Democrat like Clinton might also trigger a third-party candidacy backed by many Democrats whose views are not even dimly reflected by Clinton. Even the fresh memories of the 2000 election, with Nader's campaign playing a part in the GOP victory may not undercut this sentiment, especially if Clinton continues to argue that the Iraq War has been poorly-directed rather than fundamentally immoral. (Let's keep in mind that the Nader campaign was a tiny factor compared to the GOP's massive and coordinated disenfranchisement of African-Americans in Florida, as documented by UK-based journalist Greg Palast)

If Hillary Clinton continues down her present course, she will be driving away many voters who will see little difference between her and Guiliani or Romney on the most critical question of this era.