TPP Archives - Waxman Files

Emulating Gabriel Heatter

February 22, 2014 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

Author’s Note-This was supposed to be a column about the monthly meeting of the Sierra Club and its program. It developed into something else and I was powerless to stop it.

*Look for the silver lining, whene’er a cloud appears in the blue
Remember somewhere the sun is shining, and so the right thing to do is make it shine for you

If you’re of a certain age (at least 65 and over) you remember what radio was like in the 1940’s and 1950’s before commercial television took hold. Every network and some local radio stations had their commentators as well as general programming. Gabriel Heatter started in radio in its infancy on WOR in New York after spending some time in the Hearst organization as a reporter. In 1934 WOR became the flagship station for the new Mutual Broadcasting network and Heatter was there for the Bruno Hauptmann trial. Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Back in those days Heatter’s two main rivals for air time were Walter Winchell and Edward R. Murrow, so he was hot stuff. In 1939 he gave Alcoholics Anonymous its first national exposure and he was always looking for true and uplifting stories to broadcast. In 1942 when the US was not doing well against Japan in the Pacific the news came in that our naval forces had sunk a Japanese destroyer. Heatter started his program that evening with the iconic phrase “There’s good news tonight” a phrase he would use for the rest of his broadcasting career. It became an instant hit with audiences and Heatter spent the rest of his career making lemonade out of the sour lemons in the news feeds.

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Oh, What A Tangled Web…..

September 30, 2013 by Jerry Waxman 1 Comment

By Jerry Waxman

“Things are not always as they seem…”

Back in April of 2011 I wrote an article called “Watch The Sound Of My Voice (Never Mind What My Hands Are Doing)” in which I alluded to our current president as the best Three Card Monte man or Pea in the Walnut Shell man I’ve ever seen. Why? Because he has the ability to make you believe him. He is a consummate con artist which is not necessarily a bad thing in the right circumstances. Unfortunately, he has never used his prestidigitation abilities to benefit most of us who trusted him and voted for him. Since that time I have not seen any reason to change that assessment. Sure, he has some solid accomplishments under his belt but it feels more like the bait and switch tactics of unscrupulous retailers; you go to buy the advertised product only to find that it is not available but a substitute can be found that won’t match the better quality or lower price of the desired product. Sure, we’ve got health care, but not anything near what we should have or want, and we’ve got something resembling banking reform, which somehow made the banks richer while we got poorer. Sure, we got a stimulus, which worked for some but not for others and was not nearly enough. The fact that he’s allowed Arne Duncan to continue to destroy public education under the guise of “reform” is a crime, but that’s for another article.

To understand this rant let’s go back to the 2008 campaign season. During their frequent debates Barack Obama never let the chance go by to get his claws into Hillary Clinton by mocking President Clinton’s embrace of NAFTA, saying he would not approach trade deals that way. He also took the opportunity to belittle Hillary’s stance on the Iraq War. This was all very calculated as it was strictly to get the support of those progressive Democrats who might have otherwise supported her. He also made a few gaffes that provided insight into his character, especially his God, Guns and Gays speech in rural Pennsylvania and his allusion to Ronald Reagan as a “Transformational President”. But wait! Were they really gaffes, or were they really cold, calculated subliminal hints? His speech in Pennsylvania, which created a big media uproar did not hurt him with the Democrats, and the Alabama/Mississippi sections of Pennsylvania would never vote for him anyway. He also alluded to Ronald Reagan in a positive way. Anytime a Democrat says anything positive about Ronald Reagan you know there has to be an ulterior motive. It was to assure the old Reagan Democrat crowd that they could trust him, and also to assure those independents on the fence that he wasn’t a big city liberal. He also kneecapped Hillary again by adding that Bill was not a transformational figure like Reagan, conveniently forgetting that Bill brought the corporate world into democratic politics in a way that no one before did, and from which candidate Obama benefitted greatly, conveniently forgetting that it was Bill Clinton who implemented NAFTA, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, giving us Fox News and spreading Rush Limbaugh’s influence as well as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 which overturned Glass-Steagall and opened the way for the destruction of our economy and the middle class. Hold these thoughts in mind as I wend my way to the main theme of this essay-President Obama’s embrace of the Trans Pacific Partnership aka the TPP. I’ve written about the TPP several times so I won’t go into its history so much except for historical context. The negotiations actually began during GWB’s second term, but something that big was going to have to transcend administrations the same way that NAFTA did. Clinton did sign the agreement but the negotiations were all done under the previous Bush administration, which tried to fast track it and failed. It took two years to bring about congressional debate which nearly failed. Vice President Al Gore had to cast the deciding vote in the Senate in order for NAFTA to succeed. And NAFTA definitely succeeded in diminishing us as the foremost exporter nation in the world. It was and still is a terrible deal for the average American.

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Central Florida Unions Say No to the TPP

August 19, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

Remember that old 1956 movie, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where the giant seed pods were replacing real people with non human things that looked like people as they slept? Remember Kevin McCarthy’s frantic warning (“They’re here already! You’re next!”) as he bounced about in traffic? That movie was a thinly veiled warning against communism which was a very popular sentiment during the McCarthy (no pun intended) years. No need to be alarmed. Communism would never take hold here because we were a free people, free to choose how we lived…….or so we thought. More rightly, the movie has become prophetic because if we substituted the words “Multinational Corporatism” it doesn’t sound so horrible but it accomplishes the same goals. Guess what? Communism was never the enemy; totalitarianism was. We are about to experience totalitarianism of a different kind, a totalitarianism so absolute that even our government, at all levels, will be powerless to stop it. It’s called the Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP and our government wants us to be a part of it.

We’ve been asleep as a nation since Ronald Reagan’s election as president. That was the beginning of trickle down economics, union bashing, privatization and the consolidation of corporate power on a global basis. The economic elites see the billions of our tax dollars pumped into our highways, schools and other government services and they think to themselves that they need a piece of the action. Governments don’t make anything; they contract it out to builders, auto manufacturers, furniture manufacturers, clothing manufacturers, etc. Private industry already supplies the government with everything it needs but these people want more and our elected officials are willing to let them have it because we haven’t been holding them accountable. President Obama even alluded in his State of the Union speech to fast tracking the US efforts to join the TPP. Fast tracking is a method of escaping accountability in the US congress. The method failed on NAFTA during George H. W. Bush’s administration and NAFTA had to have a full hearing during the Clinton administration. The lessons learned from NAFTA and other free trade agreements should steer this country clear of any of those agreements in the future. I’ve written previously on the TPP in two articles, The Enemy Beneath, and You Have been Granted a Rare Privilege, the former about the dangers of the TPP and the latter about a forum in which Congressman Alan Grayson as well as other leaders spoke out. There’s no need to cover it again.

Jim Howe is a man on a mission. I first met him almost two years ago when he moved here from Midland Texas, where he was an activist, at about the same time that Occupy Orlando was starting up. He is a member of the Communications Workers of America local 3108 and his politics are decidedly progressive. He is active in the local Green Party and through his influence and efforts I got to spend a lot of time with the Green Party 2012 candidate for president, Jill Stein, who had a profound effect on me. Jim is a political activist first class and his mission these past 10 months has been to rally union and political opposition to the TPP. His efforts are starting to pay off.

At the recent AFL-CIO Central Labor Council meeting on August 14, during a hotly contested officers election meeting, Jim was able to get everyone to agree to sign on to an opposition resolution showing Central Florida labor’s stance on the TPP, prior to the elections. He also is active in Floridians Against the TPP and works closely with Public Citizen and the Citizens Trade Campaign. The Citizens Trade Campaign has crafted a letter to Congress with support from numerous groups to stop the fast tracking and the TPP itself. The letter itself hasn’t been updated since March, but Central Florida Labor was signatory to it even then.

Although it is not written about by the mainstream press in a large way there are several articles and actions popping up if you care to look for them. Most recently progressive blogger, Jim Hightower, wrote extensively and expressively on the subject. The one question we all ask ourselves is why the secrecy? How come there’s no real outrage? Are we so used to being ignored and abused by our leaders and corporations that we just meekly accept whatever crumbs we receive? Not where Central Florida Labor is concerned. With men like Jim Howe taking leading roles in keeping up the opposition this battle is far from being over. Howe wants everyone to know that the next planning meeting for action against the TPP will be held on Thursday, August 22 at 6:30 pm at CWA union hall, 2220 Edgewater Drive in Orlando. Be there, because if you’re not “you’re next!”

“You Have Been Granted A Rare Privilege”

May 22, 2013 by Jerry Waxman 2 Comments

By Jerry Waxman

“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with HIM”

Secretary: “The directors of the Thatcher Memorial Library have asked me again to remind you Mr. Thompson,”

Reporter: “Yes, but……”

Secretary: “of the conditions under which you may inspect certain portions of Mr. Thatcher’s unabridged memoirs.”

Reporter: “I know, but…….”

Secretary: (into phone) “I’ll bring him right in. Under no circumstances are direct quotations from his manuscript to be used by you.”

Reporter: “I’m just looking for one…….”

Secretary: Mr. Thompson, you will be required to leave this room at 12:30 promptly. You will confine yourself, it is our understanding, to the chapters in Mr. Thatcher’s manuscript regarding Mr. Kane.

This little scene from Citizen Kane, largely overlooked, is a frightening reminder of the power that certain people have to restrict information from being put out to the general population. Information that can be vitally important yet reveal secrets that can be embarrassing.

On Saturday, May 18 Floridians Against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, along with Central Florida AFL-CIO and the Communication Workers of America held a forum to discuss the negative impact that the TPP would have across the region as well as the rest of the country and it’s not pretty. In my last article on the TPP, The Enemy Beneath, These dangers were well spelled out along with some compelling videos of speakers at the last gathering in Tampa. I need not repeat them here since the several speakers did an excellent job of representing their positions.

Lorraine Tuliano, head of Central Florida’s Central Labor Council for the AFL-CIO explained how the middle class and working families are affected by these “Investor State” trade deals. Marjorie Holt of the Sierra Club spoke about the effect that “Fracking” and other procedures would have on our fragile environment. Steve Wisniewski, President of CWA Local 3108 spoke about the lowering of standards that the TPP would allow for. Activists Jim Howe and Cherie Faircloth presented a statement from Public Citizen Global Trade Watch stating how harmful the TPP is as it is shaping up. Tim Murray of Organize now was a featured speaker admonishing the assembled group to become active because our elected officials need to hear from us constantly.

Special guest speaker of the evening was Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida’s 9^th district, who is one of but a handful of legislators that are aware of the TPP and its potential damage as well as the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. He spoke off the cuff without notes for about twenty minutes in a very relaxed erudite manner about what is happening with these FTAs and what he and others are doing about it. That little scene at the Thatcher Memorial Library is a grim reminder of what he had to go through after several attempts were made by other members of Congress including Sen. Jeff Merkley to see documents referring to the TPP and were denied access. Grayson was successful in getting permission to see exactly one document in his office in early June with the provision that no one on his staff can be there and that he can’t take any notes and he only has a limited time in which to view the document. Obviously these people don’t know who they are dealing with. He is a fierce debater and doesn’t suffer fools at all. This was not the “Don’t get sick” bombastic Alan Grayson. This was the scholarly, surgical Alan Grayson that completely eviscerated conservative pundit P.J. O’Rourke nationally on Bill Maher’s Real Time.. He can also dust it up with the best of them. At a health care rally several years ago I witnessed him go head to head with a Tea Party activist who wisely chose not to duke it out physically. Good thing too because besides being deceptively tall he has an enormous reach that most heavyweight boxers would love to have. Here’s the complete video of his anti TPP speech. After the speeches there was a question and answer period where several of the topics discussed were more fully covered.

The sixteenth round of talks is underway in Lima, Peru going on from May 15 through May 24. It is too late to do anything about the current talks; however there will be more talks in the future. At the moment Japan is negotiating to join and my sources (who for the moment must remain unnamed) tell me that too many unions are leaning towards accepting the TPP. There are some political benefits to be had in the short term, so they are sacrificing the American worker and America’s loss of sovereignty for some selfish gains. That’s unconscionable.

THE ENEMY BENEATH

April 17, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

Ship’s Captain: “Bring her around hard aport 220 with a hard rudder amidships”

Bosun: “What’s that, Captain?”

Ship’s Captain: “MAKE A LEFT! MAKE A LEFT!

U-Boat Captain “Hmmm…He brought her around hard aport 220 with a hard rudder amidships.”

1^st mate: “ Vas, Herr Hauptmann?”

U-Boat Captain: “HE MADE A LEFT! HE MADE A LEFT!”

With apologies to Charlie Manna’s War at Sea from his best-selling comedy album Manna Overboard.

The late Charlie Manna’s War at Sea routine was a send up of the classic WWII movie, The Enemy Below in which an American Destroyer captain and a German U-Boat captain play a cat and mouse game with each other, anticipating each other’s every move and countering each other’s offensives. It was a taut, tense drama with a not fully satisfying ending. Manna’s routine was very funny, but nothing is funny about the newest threat to our country which is traveling well below our radar, and we only know about it because of a few well isolated pings on our Sonar. We everyday Americans are at sea cruising while the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), running as silently as possible, has us in its periscope sights and the eleven or twelve member wolf pack is ready to draw blood.

To fully understand what’s happening we have to go back about twenty years ago to the early 1990’s when the Bush 41 administration had finalized NAFTA talks and was trying to “fast track” the agreement into action. NAFTA was a free trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada which was supposed to promote more and better trade between the three countries as well as open up more jobs. Most of us don’t read these things because they are voluminous beyond our attention spans and filled with words beyond our comprehension, but rest assured that giant corporations have more to do with the formation of these agreements than governments do and these corporations will do anything they can to create and protect their perceived future profits under these FTA agreements. We the people don’t really matter to them. Bush 41 wasn’t able to fast track the agreement before time ran out and Bill Clinton came into office. Clinton, the ultimate corporate Democrat had to renegotiate the agreement to assure some worker protections, which ultimately led to its passage. Clinton signed the document on Jan. 1, 1994. Clinton was quoted as saying. “NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t support this agreement.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time”

So did Prohibition, at the time. The trouble is that when you research these things from other that a human nature perspective Murphy’s Law kicks in full force and something bad is bound to happen. In the almost twenty years since the enactment of NAFTA American jobs have yet to make any kind of impact, Mexico’s farm communities have been devastated and Canada isn’t so happy with it either. The only people it has benefitted are the actual corporations who are doing the trading. In fact, it’s even worse than that. Buried somewhere in these agreements are regulations that supersede actual laws of the countries involved. In other words if something a corporate entity does is considered to be illegal by a country or a state it can be overruled by the terms of the agreement. The agreement allows for NAFTA to pick its own arbiters, usually corporate lawyers to determine the outcome, even over and above a Supreme Court ruling. One case in point is The Canadian Parliament banning the use of MMT, a gasoline additive in 1997. Ethyl Corp., based in Virginia, notified the government of Canada of its intent to sue under NAFTA’s Investment chapter. Ridiculous, right? Nope! The Corporate lawyer NAFTA panel rejected Canada’s argument and a year later Canada was compelled to reverse its decision on MMT and to add insult to injury Canada also had to pay out $13 million in fines and corporate profit losses. In 2012 Canada was again in the gunsights of the Eli Lilly Company because of Canada’s restrictions on granting medical patents to Lilly. Lilly filed for $100million in the NAFTA investor court. So far, over $365,000,000 has been paid out on submitted claims and there are 19 other actions under review worth 14 billion dollars. The worst part of this is that this has nothing to do with trade issues; this has to do with environmental and public health issues.

I remember discussing NAFTA with my son’s friend, Morgan who was an AFL-CIO organizer in South Florida back in the mid Nineties. At the time I was not against NAFTA because I believed that Clinton was sincere about how NAFTA would work. Morgan took the opposite view and said that it’s the worst thing that could happen to American labor. I pointed out the worker protection clauses that Clinton had inserted, and Morgan just said “that’s just never going to happen. It’s a ruse.” As it turns out Morgan was right. NAFTA is an unmitigated disaster unless you are the corporations doing the business, and there’s nothing that our government can or will do about it.

“If at first you don’t succeed”

So, what do you do when you see NAFTA is not working out? That’s easy. You expand it to include Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic making it more dangerous that before, after all, why shouldn’t some of our Latin American and Caribbean friends feel our pain as well. This was the work of the neocons in 2005 in the Bush 43 administration. There was a lot of contention in congress over CAFTA and it was only ratified by one vote in the House of Representatives. Again workers lost protection and American jobs were sent overseas. Environmental and health concerns were overlooked and the corporations made a fortune. Combining that with the Bush Tax Cuts we were screwed again.

“Try, try again.”

Not satisfied with enriching their corporate friends and damaging the average taxpayer more than ever, the Bush 43 people entered into talks to create a Pacific Basin partnership originally encompassing nine countries, including The United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. The US entered the negotiations in March of 2008 which places it during the Bush 43 administration. Since that time other countries have expressed interest including Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, The Philippines, Japan, Colombia, Laos and Costa Rica. The US is aggressively pushing South Korea to join. Since the original meeting back in 2004 there have been 16 rounds of talks, the last one taking place in Singapore back in March 4-16^th of this year. A seventeenth round is scheduled from May 15-24 in Lima, Peru.

Having experienced the difficulties in both NAFTA and CAFTA the US participation in these talks has gone covert. No one talks about it. There is almost a 100% blackout of information in the corporately controlled news media, and what information is available has been gotten through leaks and whistleblowers, and you know what happens with whistleblowers. There is no transparency in these negotiations and from what we can ascertain only 2 chapters of the agreement actually have something to do with trade itself. Much of it has to do with intellectual property, and a lot of it has to do with circumventing labor, environmental and public health issues. What we do know is that the Obama Administration has embraced the TPP and is doing what it can to fast track it. On April 15, Secretary of State John Kerry was in Japan and gave a speech at Tokyo Tech waxing eloquently about the advantages of the TPP. Activist Cherie Faircloth, a contributor to WONO actually called the White House and got through to Robert Spitzer, Senior Trade Policy Advisor with the USDA. In her conversation with Spitzer, he admitted that there were too few corporate agricultural advisors in Florida and he was looking for more. Her article appeared on Feb. 26, 2013.

Back in Early March a group of activists attended an anti TPP rally in the Ybor city section of Tampa. You can find the links to the videos Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The message is pretty clear. We’re in Submarine Alley and all those torpedoes are set to fire on us. Since we know about it we can do something about it. Even though many politicians will deny that they have knowledge of it there are some who are aware of it including Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. Action needs to be taken in the congress to not allow the fast track and to ultimately defeat the US participation in the TPP. You can get more involved by researching the TPP and going to Public Citizen. Org. Maybe we can avoid the torpedoes. Just watch out for the minefields.