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WALKING ON THIN ICE

President Obama, Jill Stein, “Free” Trade & Peace

September 5, 2012 No Comments

I’ve been wrangling with wondering who to vote for for President on election day. At this point, I think I’m voting for President Obama even though I have been donating to Jill Stein of the Green Party (see its progressive platform here).

The reason I am wrangling is because I believe that the policies of the U.S. have been unethical, particularly with respect to people, animals and the environment, and President Obama has not always chosen the ethical path in the decisions he’s made.

Presidency of the United States is not supposed to be an imperial position. Yes, we can be great, but as peaceful global participants who follow the rule of law and the innate law of universal ethics.

President Obama has not closed Guantanimo Bay even though he has made that promise. And he has not gotten us completely out of Iraq and Afghanistan, militarily speaking. Many private military contractors have remained in Iraq. And in a large percentage of his public statements he continues to unquestioningly use military rhetoric about honoring troops, etc. Potential war with Iran has been floated at various points, too, thankfully always stopped.

In addition, the state of the U.S. economy has been largely determined by our military aggression and harmful “free” trade agreements. “Free trade” sounds nice, right? Freedom being free & all? But as many people found out on both sides of the border between Mexico & the U.S., the NAFTA free trade agreement only served to weaken domestic protections of various markets in both countries to the benefit of elite “players.”

I remember when President Clinton continued pushing NAFTA (President Bush Sr. initiated the process). I blindly thought that President Clinton was just another nice Democrat like Jimmy Carter and that he was working on an agreement to benefit the people of the U.S. I remember reading about Pat Buchanan, of all people, railing against NAFTA and I so I immediately felt that it was OK to support it due to my distaste for Buchanan. I was incorrect.

NAFTA harmed Mexicans so much that millions of them had to leave Mexico to try to find work up here in the States. I stayed with a Mexican coffee farming family in Tanetze, Oaxaca, and they were affected by this for a while. Many of the men of the village had to leave because the price of coffee went down to a couple cents a kilo. Also the U.S. sent its subsidized corn down to Mexico, undermining the domestic corn producers, a significant cost. These are a couple anecdotal facts to serve as heuristic indicators of the types of damage a “free” trade agreement has tended to cause.

NAFTA was huge, had a huge impact on the way we live. A lot more Mexicans live in this area of the United States now and a lot of this was due to NAFTA. Not that I’m against immigration, but it did have an impact and there was a reason for it.

You’d think we would’ve learned not to have so much trust in these types of agreements but President Obama’s administration has been working on scores more “free” trade agreements.

In October 2011, President Obama signed three more agreements with Korea, Columbia and Panama.

And tomorrow through September 15, representatives from nine countries are working on the fourteenth round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). 

Critics of “free” trade agreements have tended to believe that the agreements are just negotiations that help transnational corporations and not the vast majority of people they affect–that the agreements tend to strip away the rights of people and the environment.

It’s important for us to ask questions of our President and to have long memories and really dig around and find out what the facts are. I don’t know of a single person in my casual circles who now thinks NAFTA was a good idea. So can we start asking about this tentative Trans-Pacific Partnership and find out what it would really mean for us, for people around the world, and for the environment?

I’m thinking that by voting for President Obama yet donating to both Jill Stein and President Obama, I am perhaps helping President Obama move towards the left by giving him some competition. This will move him and future Democratic presidential candidates to become more progressive, less warlike, and to better serve the broadest base of people and the environment.

~ Lady

 

The News in hindsight, 2020 – 9/19/2020

September 19, 2010 No Comments

In this episode, we travel back in time to the psychologically significant year 2010…

Blogger Lady K said:

I think Obama could do well to listen to Clinton’s advice, although I’m disappointed with Clinton’s free trade initiatives and other things. As far as dealing with the public, though, I think Clinton has a lot to say.

In the current year, 2020, we now know that Obama did well to cherry-pick the best advice possible from former presidents. Thanks to Obama’s 2010 initiatives, the old problems with the economy, weather, and the divisiveness of the world have ceased to exist. Obama was elected to a second term, and the Democratic-Republicans continue to improve the US and we are now an ethical member of the UN.

It was important that mainstream media started picking up more difficult stories–“U.S. troops accused of killing Afghans ‘for sport.’ The recognition that the US had been acting as an imperial power turned around the perception in the public of what it means to occupy and bomb other countries for resources and revenge. Thank goodness we are making reparations and the Iraqi people are now prosperous even though oil is no longer a fuel of significance to our economy. The resilience of the Afghan people through occupation of the former Soviet Union, the Taliban and the United States has been an inspiration to us all. The brave women who transformed Afghan society–who woulda thunk they’d’ve turned their burquas into junk? Of course, we now have burqua appreciation societies all over the world, including France.

“Lawmakers divided on expiration of Bush tax cuts”–

Lawmakers bravely decided during those critical years to stop supporting such a striated system that extracted wealth from the lower and middle classes and redistributed it to the upper classes. This article is emblematic of the turning point we made to a healthier society with more equitable wealth distribution. We soon closed the tax loopholes as well.

The Weather – hurricanes that happened in 2010. In blogger Lady K’s words:

Fanapi has touched down on land. A lot of people have evacuated Taiwan. I hope there are few deaths and that people in danger of mudslides evacuate their areas.

Igor has weakened, as has Julia. I think it is because both are heading northish, possibly into cooler waters? Seems like goodish news.

Thank goodness we all have weather control now, in collaboration with Gaia and the Sun. His and her consciousnesses continue to communicate with us to better regulate Gaia’s systems.