Can we have a Democratic party that is not in support of an economic race to the bottom that pits American workers against impoverished workers in Asia and Africa who corporations are able to hire for only pennies a day?

"Ugh" is right. eom.

organization that is considered pretty RW.

And your father would be in favor of fair trade, small but critical distinction. Nor did nafta create jobs. Unless of course we mean lower pay service jobs replacing good pay union jobs.

letting corporations do whatever the fuck they want, so in that sense, yes.

I don't want to throw her under the bus. I think she just tossed that term around while envisioning trade participants being reasonable with each other and not trying to squeeze the last drop of blood.

indeed.

She was six when her father died. I'm sorry for her loss, but it doesn't make her an expert on trade issues.

Trade globalization has had nothing but right-wing effects. Why are you still backing it when your own candidate has her doubts about it now, IIRC?

Last edited Sun Jun 14, 2015, 07:27 PM - Edit history (1)

1. She grew up in a prominent political family
2. Her father was pro-free trade president
3. She has worked in government.

Any of which makes her more of an expert on her father's - and Democrats' - history on trade issues. MUCH more so than someone banging around a message forum using Google to help try to make their case.

And reaches exactly the opposite conclusions that she does.

And as to your first points...they could be taken as an argument that no one has any right to disagree with George W. Bush on trade policy. Are you SURE you wanna go there?

It's always a betrayal for the Democratic Party to ally themselves with what corporate power wants on economic issues-you're not a Democrat anymore if you side with the 1% against the 99%.

<--- snip of over-the-top revolution rhetoric --->

She'd dispute the usefulness of those policies.

Are you arguing that if JFK was for something, no Democrat can legitimately question it? That means you'd be arguing that his brother wasn't a Democrats, because Bobby died in the midst of a presidential campaign that was largely a rejection of "bear any burden, fight any foe" and of the very idea that we should ever have been in Vietnam at all.

Jack and Bobby also agreed to let J. Edgar Hoover wiretap Dr. King. Are you saying that no Democrat can legitimately question that?

The whole idea of the Democratic Party is that we are a party in which ideas and policies are open to full debate and that those in the rank-and-file should have just as much of a say as the party leadership. Take those things away(as Clinton did in the Nineties), and the party loses any moral right to call itself "Democratic" until they are restored(as they've only partially been restored to this date).

Read the OP and my replies again.

and "nobody could possibly know as much about the issue as Caroline does".

and even if you were just referring to her father, she was a child when he died and thus wouldn't know anything more about his presidency than anybody else, when you get right down to it.

It's a valid historical observation on her part that her father supported trade liberalization-but it doesn't really mean anything for her to assert that, because her father supported it, all Democrats should feel obligated to.

Your whole thrust was that Caroline cannot be challenged or questioned, simply because she is who she is.

And that's bogus.

I respect her family(especially Bobby), but the Kennedys do not have papal-style infallibilty on anything.

So stop the dismissiveness and the condescension, because none of it is earned.

Post #3: Does Caroline understand what "free trade" means?
Me: I'm sure she know much better than you do
You: Elizabeth Warren has far more experience on trade policy than "Sweet Caroline" ever will

See where you (intentionally) got off track?

Ok ok ok, here's the part where you start bending, twisting, sprinkling in some more 'progressive' revolutionary blah blah and making stuff up.

than anybody else.

I did not get off track.

Caroline is just another person with just another opinion. Her views are not privileged and her knowledge is not intrinsically superior.

Some of that famous 'I know what you're thinking better than you do' attitude some are famous for around here.

Then you had to take a personal dig at her. Pathetic.

It was not your place to proclaim that that poster simply wasn't informed on trade issues. You don't know how much that poster knows, and since you disagree with that poster you can't fairly judge that poster's qualifications or education on the issue.

The poster you dissed had just as much right to express an opinion as Caroline does...and that's all Caroline expressed, one opinion.

You insulted that poster and you had no right to do so. Everyone is equally entitled to speak on this issue, and Caroline is just another person. Her view carries no more weight than anybody else's.

It's the same as it would have been if JFK Jr. had been calling for Democrats to stay hardline on Cuba, just because he was playing under daddy's desk during the Missile Crisis.

Now your focus is on if someone's feelings were hurt by the fact Caroline knows more about her father's positions than a faceless DUer. LOL.

It's just that it doesn't mean anything that Caroline backs the corporate position on the issue...nor does mean that Caroline knows more than the poster knows. The poster you dissed was asking if Caroline knew what free trade means...not whether she knew what her own father's position on trade was.

It's irrelevant to current politics that JFK backed something over fifty years ago. I assume you wouldn't call on Democrats today to embrace the foreign policy JFK backed-a policy that doomed us to Vietnam, nearly got us exterminated during the Missile Crisis(which we could have totally avoided had we simply done at the beginning what we did at the end and accepted the Soviet proposal-their missiles out of Cuba in in exchange for ours out of Turkey-without putting the planet through a week of utterly pointless mortal terror).


I'm totally on track and you're not entitled to talk down to me or to anyone else here. Give the Donald Rumsfeld tactics a rest.

He(I assume it was a he) was simply pointing out that Caroline is no more of an expert on the concept of "free trade" than anybody else.

and the whole premise of DU is that nobody is supposed to be told that they aren't entitled to speak about any issues. We aren't about elitism or deference to political "royal families".

And there's no reason we should be.

A policy that's been a major part of Democratic policy since FDR's first campaign.

It's one thing to be against a major part of Democratic policy. It's quite another to pretend it isn't and hasn't been a major part of Democratic policy or to pretend it has somehow 'changed.'

That doesn't mean it's disloyal for Democrats to question Democratic policies(indeed, as a supporter of the DLC, you have spent decades questioning the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and the Great Society, as well as pushing for Democrats to distance themselves from their historic policies of actively working to defeat poverty and actively supporting the growth of the labor movement).

At one point, it was "a major part of Democratic policy" to defend slavery and later to build and defend Jim Crow. Are you saying that Democrats should never have questioned those things, just because Democrats as a party once supported them?

What the Democratic Party stands for now on human rights has nothing whatsoever to do with what it stood for in the days of Andrew Jackson, a man Native Americans have every right to regard in the same way that Jews, Roma, gays, leftists and Jehovah's witnesses once regarded Hitler), or the days of Woodrow Wilson(who screened "Birth of a Nation", a celebration of the Ku Klux Klan, at the White House and who defended segregation in conversations with blacks)or the "States Rights" committee chairs who kept lynchings unpunished and the entire South(as well as some other places)"whites only" until 1964. We should be proud that it doesn't. You, as an African American, only have the vote because it doesn't.

What the Democratic Party stands for now has nothing in common on economics with what the party stood for in the days of Grover Cleveland(who told starving farmers and the members of Coxey's Army that he could do nothing to help them because that would go against his "free market" beliefs to do anything socially compassionate). Thank God that that's changed, because our party wouldn't have any reason to exist if it didn't.

There's nothing disloyal in calling for "the party of the people" to change its policies to better serve the people. That's all that anti-globalization activists(and the majority of House and Senate Democrats)are doing. That's all that poster was doing.

We have never been a party that stood still.

countries. Their trade is 'globalized' much, much more than ours is and their middle class and unions are quite strong.

I agree with Bernie. Why can't we be more like them?

Their trade policies have nothing to do with that.(and actually, I think they do at least some protectionism).

It's not as if the only way to have trade is to let corporations veto labor laws, environmental policies, or social benefits.

Glad she didn't run for office. Sounds like she's drunk the third way gin-juice. Using the reputation of giants to sell this piece of toxic crap is really low.

There is a reason she can't get much support from democrats in NY.

it is more about multi-international corporate profits. About the court system the latest agreements have set up in order to sue countries because the countries have laws that make their profits less than they could make. Labor laws, environmental laws, etc.

Then look at the recent cases against the US where corporations have actually done just that. And think about what this law means to poor nations in their relationship with huge corporations.

I do not think JFK would have been at all interested in TPA, TPP or the Medicare rip off they are calling trade agreements today.

Poor nations, rich nations, and every other nation want to be party to these agreements that include the tribunals run under rules of the UN and WTO. If they were so onerous, why would any country approve a trade agreement?

Small distinction in words here. Free trade is not trade by fiat, which is what these agreements amount to.

I'm sorry that Caroline Kennedy could not have been a better historian. She certainly had history to reflect upon where fair trade and tariffs are concerned.

I expected MUCH better from her than THIS crapola.

JFK was NOT trying to free trade with 3rd world countries which our CEO's relocated their headquarters to in order to dodge US taxes, and which paid workers pennies an hour, thereby sacrificing our work force's hard earned benefits. He wasn't cutting medicaid to do it. He wasn't providing big pharmaceuticals their billion dollar profits at the expensive of the elderly.

Its quite a different world today than when JFK was president. Ted Kennedy was a lot closer to this current world, and he should have trusted his gut and voted against NAFTA.

That makes it easy not to worry too much about lost blue-collar jobs.

If anything, her considerable fortune would most likely benefit from TPP.

It will be very close.

The votes seem to be there for TPA, but if House Democrats take the destructive step of killing off TAA there is a very uncertain path forward.

I haven't had much to say about TPP because I just don't know what to think. Time to start paying attention and doing some reading...

I can remember when DU used to care about exploited factory workers in third world countries. All politics being local, I see less of that nowadays. The greater concern is that "those people" will do the same work for less and take "our jobs."


It's a tough situation, certainly.

Do you know anything about the ravages of ftas in Central and South America?

I can see why you never got the call from the White House offering you an ambassadorship!

when our middle class is dying.

People do love to improve the lives of others, so long as that improvement doesn't mean that they'll lose out on anything--or at least, not anything they care about. The minute giving so and so X means that someone close to home loses Y, the appeal diminishes.

The GOP understand this, and they use it to very good advantage. In their examples, it's not "those Vietnamese" or "those Indonesians"--it's "those Black people" or "those ILLEGALS" (said with all the dire menace they can muster).

The ones who have insulated themselves from this zero sum game are the Very Rich. If anything, they're getting richer. Of course, that's always been the case, it would seem...money attracts money.

It's a complex matter. In Vietnam, someone making three bucks a day doesn't really care if the US middle class takes a hit. Where one stands on this matter depends very much on where one sits. It's not an easy 'solve' at all.

meaning they're sending their corporate lawyers & lobbyists to the negotiations so I doubt very highly this is about improving the conditions of exploited labor but you're right about caring less though I never seen much of it in the first place except when Qatar does it for the World Cup but few seem to even know the Department of Defense has done it for well over a decade and US corporations have long done so in the Arabian Peninsula which the economies their are built off the backs off of. If this was about improving labor rights you'd think they would start there, right?

I'm sorry but haven't we given the wealthy, the corporations, the banks enough. This is getting embarrassing now. We are NOT republicans, can you people in power understand that already. This is NOT who democrats are. We do NOT support the rape and pillage of the working and middle class in this country. Stop already!

she has to spout this nonsense.

you are correct.

Oops… my secret is out!

I just sent three separate phone calls to my House and Senate members in my state.

All the worlds' people are saying is to vote NO on fast track authority of secret trade deals.

Secret, behind closed doors, without regard for food safety, consumer right to know, environmental protections… Why?

That's what these people are saying, apparently in her back yard.

Clinton Uses Jfk Legacy To Push Case For Nafta
1993

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1993-10-30/news/9310300094_1_sen-kennedy-nafta-kennedy-family

would the dem president who in senate introduced medicare into law support a trade deal which would take 700 million out of medicare?

JFK wasn't exactly beloved by rich eather.

I am baffled as to why we want to handcuff ourselves to extreme corporate rule, while China walks all over us unimpeded by such regulations. You must be right, we want China to become an even bigger economic powerhouse in the region.

railing against libertarians as evil incarnate. Funny how they are now so silent about those evil libertarians...gee I wonder if it is because 'free trade' is a cornerstone of neo-liberalism?

The things that people will shift their morals on, is quite amazing to behold.

This is the woman who got the NYC superintendent of schools to declare a snow day because her son, a private school student, had not done his homework and private schools usually closed if public schools closed. Not a single thought to the needless chaos she would throw single working parent or two working parent homes into. Not as though missing one day of homeword was going to keep President's Kennedy's grandson out of college or something. Just extraordinary selfishness and thoughtlessness, total disregard for those less privileged than she.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Klein-Once-Called-Snow-Day-for-Caroline-Kennedy-117745403.html

The generation Rose Kennedy raised was extraordinary. The qualities she instilled in Ted, RFK, JFK, Eunice Shriver, et. al did not always get passed on to the next generation. And, sadly, Caroline was not really raised by a Kennedy.

Last edited Sat Jun 13, 2015, 04:38 AM - Edit history (1)

accept that info gratefully.

We can't stop this any more than farm workers could stop wheat threshing machines 150 years ago.

products.

They're employing 5% of the workforce they used to, though, while producing more yarn/cloth/whatever.

Mass manufacturing employment is over.

Machines have probably took more jobs than anybody has really though I imagine it varies by industry so there is a need for a labor still mass or otherwise -- Malaysia's economy is dominated by the manufacturing sector -- but the point I was intending to make with that comment that with the loss of industrial manufacturing jobs there has been an increase in demand for "Made in USA" and the products that are most often checked for labels probably include clothes.

As if those de-industralized cities exist in only our imaginations where Motorola went from being the largest private employer in Arizona to now Wal*Mart and no need to save it? I'm sure there are quite a bit defense contractor manufacturing jobs but that is a big step backward.

The traditional economy of Massachusetts was more tied to the jobs of the American Middle Class than the traditional economy in New York. The Massachusetts economy was based on industry and tech. Even in the best of times, the New York economy was about the fire sector.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_economy

Can people please at least look at the actual numbers here?

I suspect we also import more than at any point in history as well, people pretty much have to pay for those imports.

Therein lies the problem, one small group profits from exports and another much larger one who largely does not profit from the exports has to pay for the imports.

And that leads us to the real question we face.

Dealing with the realities of the automated economy is counter to the basic moral standards that capitalism has cultivated, meaning it will never actually be addressed.

Last edited Fri Jun 12, 2015, 02:27 PM - Edit history (1)

It's a litttle disappointing to see Caroline trying to use her father to influence questionable policy decisions.

I've followed trade politics all my life as a member of the AFL-CIO. I know that some Democrats and others in Congress have much stronger records of support for free trade agreements than Hillary Clinton does. Others have much stronger records of opposition to them. Clinton is in the camp that is hard to predict, Wyden, DiFi, the Washington Senators are all hands down free traders. Nelson, Carper all of those 6 voted for NAFTA, CAFTA and TPA. Of our current Presidential candidates, Lincoln Chafee has the strongest pro trade voting record, Sanders the best, Hillary in the middle and O'Malley has no record because he's never had a vote in the Congress.

I get that it is fun to snipe at Hillary, but I think DU would be wiser to learn real political histories and act accordingly. DU is a place where those who claim TPP is a stab in the back praise Ron Wyden all day while claiming Hillary is the devil. That's just dumb.
More than one person on DU has offered Chafee as alternative 'because Hillary loves the TPP. That's so stupid. Ignorant.
It's also not the fuel of effective activism.

She participated in writing it, gave speeches promoting it, called it the "gold standard," and the Clinton Foundation received millions of dollars from lobbyists and industry supporting it (wink-wink-nudge-nudge-nothing to see here folks!).

And now she's hemming and hawing, afraid to get off the fence. She wants to pretend she's progressive to Democrats and not offend her corporate sponsors at the same time. Like Bernie said, how can she not have an opinion on one of the most important free trade bills in the history of this country.

She's not a leader.

that she replace her uncle as senator. Her only "qualification" was that she had the last name Kennedy

Talk about a coronation!

Caroline expressed an interest in running for the seat because, you know, democracy, and the Clintonverse lost their collective shit. So they recruited K. Gillibrand, a conservative Democract in the House (yes, it's true), gave her a liberal makeover, and voila they squatted on the seat.

By the way, as a point of interest, when Obama began the multilateral negotiations with Iran, Ms. Gillibrand and Corey Booker signed onto the early permutation of new sanctions against Iran in defiance of the path to peace. Yep, it's true. They later backed away but their initial hubris is on the record.

Too bad that she only wanted it if it was given too her, and so, she never ran

Unlike carpetbagger Hillary Clinton who has sold her soul to Corporate America for personal gain.

After all, serving in the Senate is not a bed of roses, fun and games.

If she was too delicate, or "gracious" to deal with a campaign and everything it involves, thank heavens she never ran!

No sale lady, you're no Bobby Kennedy for gawddam sure.

Go away, Caroline.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

As I said down thread, Caroline was a mere 5 years of age (nearing 6) when her father was murdered. She needs to study his speeches and actions rather than "channel" her spin based on bloodline.

Hate to say it, but "Caroline, you are no JFK!"

I wonder if it comes from the domination of economics departments of the followers of Milton Friedman. The descendents of the Roosevelts have become very teabaggy as well. There is also the "insider disease," you can see very clearly in hereditary dems like Chris Matthews. They really have developed a sense that they are entitled to our loyalty, without letting us have any power.

This is a question I will never get to ask. One has to wonder what the price of the status quo has become when the daughter of JFK cannot objectively assess it.

As usual, you have the best authors referenced to back up how JFK's international policy would be then, and today.

when I watched him debate Ross Perot on that issue.

Ross Perot correctly predicted what would happen.

Gore is generally always excellent in debate which he was but the main points to make the case he was "wrong" was bringing up other false predictions which are irrelevant the NAFTA issue and exploited his anger. Gore is very good in debates but though I'm unclear if you still think NAFTA is a good thing still today, I think Obama selling TPP, among other things, "fixes NAFTA" says all that needs to be said on if it was a good thing or not.

She cannot, and should not, try to extrapolate a correlation between what JFK favored in 1962 and what is happening today. Moreover, she was just days shy of her 6th birthday when he was murdered, so despite the bloodline, I truly don't think can channel his thoughts. After all, how many liberals, progressives, DUers, etc... have relatives whose political views are polar opposite to theirs.

Despite the Kennedy tragedies, Caroline has led an extremely privileged life, and instead of inheriting the best of the noblesse oblige commitment and heart of her Dad and uncles, it appears she has swallowed the turd way Kool-Aid.

I don't think Caroline Kennedy is an uncaring person and she probably means well (who knows though), but there is no way in hell she can understand what such a trade deal is going to do to the common people of this country.

Not the JFK card... please.

Especially when you add in H1B visas and how they are abused (see Disney, making its US IT workers train their own H1B replacements)

I guess Elvis was pro "free trade" too so we should appeal to his celebrity too?

about working people who struggle, paycheck to paycheck, to make a living and provide for their families.

To the contrary, they want to cut social security, medicare, God knows, the list goes on and on.

And let's be real: her dad got out-liberaled by LB fucking J, so it's past time to stop acting like he's the north star guiding our politics.

Because she published a book which was essentially a collection of essays by great thinkers, not her, of course. Too bad she is now the Kennedy legacy.

allowed ANYONE to tell me what I should be "for" or against. If JFK were here today touting free trade, I'd be opposing him.

--democratic decisions of elected governments has anything at all to do with trade?

This was JFK's 1960 campaign book and you can still pick up copies of the paperback (original price 50 cents) for a dollar online:



It's mainly a collection of Congressional and campaign speeches addressing Kennedy's foreign policy plans, organized by region, and as the title suggests his defense strategy was basically a peace strategy. He doesn't address free trade specifically and mainly considers international commerce as a form of assistance to second- and third-world nations. But he's absolutely against military intervention anywhere, including Formosa and Indochina (Vietnam), which was already a quagmire, and strongly favors economic exchange including development loans and international banks to encourage foreign investment and US imports to develop foreign economies. When he's asked specifically about tariffs to protect US goods he says that they're useful for keeping resources from flowing out of the country but that we're not in immediate danger of running out of resources. In other words he doesn't see it as a problem. But offshoring as it became an issue in the 70s and 80s wasn't yet on the radar.

too. Liberal Democrats of the FDR-Truman-Kennedys era had a different perspective on trade and international agreements. One that is largely shared by liberals in progressive countries and, at least according to polls, by most liberals in the US today.

I had not realized that Ted Kennedy had voted for NAFTA.

Why? Basically, old-fashioned trade deals are a victim of their own success: there just isn’t much more protectionism to eliminate. Average U.S. tariff rates have fallen by two-thirds since 1960. The most recent report on American import restraints by the International Trade Commission puts their total cost at less than 0.01 percent of G.D.P.

Implicit protection of services — rules and regulations that have the effect of, say, blocking foreign competition in insurance — surely impose additional costs. But the fact remains that, these days, “trade agreements” are mainly about other things. What they’re really about, in particular, is property rights — things like the ability to enforce patents on drugs and copyrights on movies. And so it is with T.P.P.

<snip>

What the T.P.P. would do, however, is increase the ability of certain corporations to assert control over intellectual property. Again, think drug patents and movie rights.

Is this a good thing from a global point of view? Doubtful. The kind of property rights we’re talking about here can alternatively be described as legal monopolies. True, temporary monopolies are, in fact, how we reward new ideas; but arguing that we need even more monopolization is very dubious — and has nothing at all to do with classical arguments for free trade.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/opinion/krugman-no-big-deal.html?_r=0

Malaysia has a thriving pharmaceutical sector with pharmacies everywhere providing low cost drugs. I think Thailand imports a lot of generics. The idea is to push them out of the way so only the US approved drug companies have access to this industry increasing the prices of the costs of drugs because of the fewer competitors. Things and free trade deals are very different and the recent ones have led to trade deficits and the US already does have trade deficits with the Southeast Asian countries in question.

As far as polls go...

Harry Truman "How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if he had taken a poll in the land of Israel? What would have happened to the Reformation if Martin Luther had taken a poll? It isn't polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It's right and wrong and leadership."

Nixon came up with dodging Democracy with TPA fast track. Congress never allowed it with Bush....

If a free trade deal is good, it wouldn't need secrecy & fast track.

We aren't ag free trade, we just want fair trade that is open to people other than lobbyists to create & effing read!

In a more pleasant world, they would be. It would be about exchange of goods for the mutual enrichment of hte people of both nations

In the world we live in however, they are corporate garrotes around the throats of participating nations, threatening a loss of business if the nations to not shake down their citizens to liberate capital for those corporations, while also restricting the citizens to create captive "consumers" for those corporations and their maquiladoras. It's about reducing nations' abilities to regulate these corporations to protect and serve their people.

"Free trade" is not about trade. It's about Laissez-faire economics, and neoliberal "market liberation." it revolves around the idea that governments are always bad, and that business owners are always good. it's a purely reactionary philosophy that favors the wealthy and harms the poor.

Excellent post all-the-way-around.

than democrats, even way back then. . .

The polls show it. GOP party platforms in many states in 2008 and 2012 show it.

Certainly from the post-Civil War era to the 1980's, including JFK's time, republicans were the high-tariff party. Their base still is. FDR ushered in the modern era of low tariffs, more trade and multilateral institutions to govern it. Most Democrats still seem to understand this.

The rest of us are not quite so fortunate.

More Third Weigh hilarities, and the joke's on us.

suffer down the road because of their myopia.