In other Labor Day news: Obama wants more free trade, unions protest

[Bluebear]

Negotiations on a free trade agreement in the Pacific Rim were the focus of a Labor Day rally in downtown Chicago Monday, where union leaders and other activists called for a fair deal or no deal if it jeopardizes jobs, health and the environment...

“Hundreds of thousands of workers here in Chicago and all over the Midwest are out of jobs because of bad trade agreements like NAFTA that did so much to push down the value of people’s labor in this country…and has pushed down workers ability to raise their standards everywhere,” Tom Balanoff, president of the Service Employees International Union Illinois State Council, told the gathering...

Countries involved in the negotiations include Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States. The TPP members have a goal of reaching the outlines of an agreement by the time a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Corporation takes place in November in Hawaii...

The Obama administration, which wants to see a trade pact, notes the Asia-Pacific region comprises 40 percent of the global population, and the economies are growing faster than the world average with 56 percent of global GDP in 2009. The region is the largest market in the world for U.S exports and receives two thirds of U.S. agricultural exports. The administration says it is committed to increasing those exports and creating more domestic jobs.

http://www.suntimes.com/7486109-417/union-leaders-call-for-fair-deal-on-free-trade-in-pacific-rim.html

[Brickbat]

1. Bluebear, you know what I'm going to say, because you've been saying it, too.

Let's say it together.

CHILL THE FUCK OUT...

[Bluebear]

9. .....

We are all chill!!

[QC]

18. Bluebear just wants a dictator!

A dictator with a magic wand!

[Brickbat]

26. That. Is awesome.

I can't stop laughing. The pompoms on the slippers! :rofl:

[QC]

27. Thanks! Feel free to use it whenever ou are accused of wanting a dicator/a king/

someone with a magic wand/President Bachmann, etc.

[peacebird]

2. I'm tired of writing software test procedures simple enough that anyone could run them

Just so I can outsource my job to someone in India who makes a fraction what I do BECAUSE it costs a fraction as much to LIVE there.

I have over 30 years experience in my industry and that is worth something. You can only write procedures so detailed. At some point you NEED the experience, and the mentorship of your engineers.

Or so I thought....

[LooseWilly]

5. "Or so I thought..." — and so it becomes apparent that you are just a worker after all...

and your bosses never really loved you, but were simply looking for an opportunity to screw you (the software engineers) over, just like they do with the cubicle dwellers all throughout the building... not to mention the supply delivery guys, the cleaning staff, etc.

In other words... welcome the fuck out of the middle class. You're now working class. ;(

[Creideiki]

15. Software engineers were among the first of the "professionals" thrown out

Started way back in the mid- to late-90s, and keeps going today.

[Angry Dragon]

3. What do we produce in this country that will sell in these

other countries??

Bombs, guns, fighter jets, tanks??

[Starry Messenger]

4. No Bluebear, we union members are HAPPY.

Didn't you get the memo? Chant louder, dammit!

[Bluebear]

23. My hands are raw already!

[DirkGently]

6. Did Obama ever renegotiate NAFTA as pledged in the campaign? (genuinely don't know)

[Bluebear]

8. Obama: NAFTA not so bad after all

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/18/magazines/fortune/easton_obama.fortune/

[DirkGently]

10. Oh boy. (nt)

[joshcryer]

11. You voted for him not knowing he was weak on that position?

[TBF]

12. OFFS, he has been weak on all dem policies since taking office.

He ran on a progressive agenda, and is now governing from the DLC branch of the republican party. Your attempt to spin it any other way is disingenuous at best.

[joshcryer]

19. Whatever. He never ran on a progressive agenda. He was post-partisan, middle of the road...

...the whole way.

A progressive is not post-partisan and is not middle of the road. The middle of the road doesn't get you progress, it gets you a head on collision.

[Zax2me]

13. Yes, and no, I didn't.

He didn't campaign this way.

[joshcryer]

17. You can't just watch a labor speech and expect that to represent the entirety of a candidacy.

A lot of us saw through it. I bet you'd be surprised that he also campaigned for offshore oil drilling, too.

[DirkGently]

14. I heard what he actually said on the campaign, yes. Thought he might stick to it.

]“I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada to try to amend NAFTA because I think that we can get labor agreements in that agreement right now,” he said during a Democratic debate. “And it should reflect the basic principle that our trade agreements should not just be good for Wall Street, it should also be good for Main Street.”

http://economyincrisis.org/content/obamas-unfulfilled-nafta-campaign-promise

It was, at the time, a compelling distinction between him and Hillary Clinton.

[joshcryer]

16. That was from 2007. But I assume you knew that.

His position on NAFTA weakened over time. As did his position on offshore oil drilling. He told the AFL-CIO in 2007 that he was against NAFTA (http://glassbooth.org/explore/index/barack-obama/11/trade-and-economics/6/">your quote) but as things got nearer to the vote, he started playing down NAFTA. Hillary didn't flip flop on that one issue (said she was against it during the campaign) but Obama got a quote of someone saying that she was in on the NAFTA meetings and it was all she wrote. Hillary was a terrible liar during the whole campaign, I don't know if it's because the media scrutinized her more because she was a woman, or because Obama was just better at playing both sides.

[DirkGently]

20. He said as late as a 2008 debate with Hillary that he would threaten to opt-out.

But so did Hillary, at that point.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/03/the-facts-about-nafta-gate/

Q: Senator Obama . . . Simple question: Will you, as president, say to Canada and Mexico, "This has not worked for us; we are out"?
Obama: I will make sure that we renegotiate, in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about. And I think actually Senator Clinton’s answer on this one is right. I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced. And that is not what has been happening so far.

[Bluebear]

21. Candidate Obama. What a guy he was!

[Broderick]

24. And thankfully we will get that Candidate

Campaigning again. He is very good at that. Too bad campaigns can't last 8 years.

[joshcryer]

22. Funny how things changed once he had the nomination in the bag, huh?

[Bake]

25. Well, yeah, but the alternative was worse ...

Like, where we gonna go?

Hope, and all that shit.

Bake

[sabrina 1]

29. Weak? Is that the new talking point? We are all to blame for

voting for him because he really never said the things we heard him? If that's the strategy for 2012, he's already lost.

The truth is he flip-flopped on so many issues it's hard to keep track, but to try to claim he never was for many of them before he was against them, like the Offshore Drilling issue, is simply foolish. He flip-flopped, sort of, on that issue in August of 2008, purely for political reasons after it was determined by his 'advisers' that Republicans stand on the issue, McCains, might be resonating better with voters. Up to that point he was against Offshore Drilling and even after signaling a possible change, he was not outright FOR it, but rather claimed he might 'soften' his position IF he could get concessions in return.

This 'blame the voters' garbage is utterly ridiculous. By the time he flip-flopped on that position, the voters had little choice unless they wanted to vote for McCain. And no, we were not 'hearing things'. He WAS against offshore drilling, period. Attempting to change the record might work IF there was no record of everything he flip-flopped on, such as Mandated Ins. among other things.

This losing argument that he was 'never a progressive' has become thoroughly boring. Maybe he wasn't, but he sure pretended to be on the most important issues.

[Claudia Jones]

30. we were told we had no choice

Remember? Before the election, people got upset if anyone pointed out that "he was weak on that position."

Before the election: "Stop claiming that he is weak on that position. You are lying, he is not weak on that position, and you are helping the Republicans, so stop criticizing."

After the election: "How could you be so stupid as to not know he was weak on that position? You got exactly what you voted for, so stop criticizing."

[bvar22]

7. It is NOT possible to be Pro-LABOR or Pro-Working Class...

..and support "Free Trade" at the same time.
They ARE mutually exclusive.


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[xchrom]

28. recommend

[amborin]

31. kr