Obama Tries to Make His Bones Again with the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Thanks Ian,

I grow weary of this man and by that I mean, Obama has lied so often, so effectively and with such devastating results, that he is, as God is my witness, the greater evil.

I am too tired to argue with his band of sycophants…let they and their children reap the whirlwind of what Obama has sown; in disastrous foreign affairs, that bode for war eternal, in domestic affairs, subjugating those who work for a median paycheck to those on Wall Street, who take an ever increasing share of their labor and in trade, where the rule of law is subject to international tribunals of stateless corporate board members. It is too much.

I wrote a longish letter today, which I electronically communicated to about 90% of the fraternities and sororities at Rutgers (of which I’m an alumnus), in what amounts to a “hail Mary” attempt to get a large group of people to focus on the an optimal strategy to defeat TPP Fast Track.

The strategy is basically this: getting the Rutgers student body (at least the Greek/frat/sorority component) to collaborate in informing Republican voters about one of the worst horrors of TPP – potentially massive insourcing and “unrestricted immigration”, who also have potentially the most to lose from this aspect of the TPP horror show. (I left it up to them to decide, on a group basis, as to how exactly they do this.)

The focus on Republican voters is because of a) the well known partiality of Republican lawmakers to TPP, compared to Democratic lawmakers and b) the fact that I anticipate that Republican voters will be most furious about the “unrestricted immigration” / “free movement of workers” aspect, that Dick Morris revealed earlier this week. (See http://tinyurl.com/my4c24y ) BTW, in Ralph Nader’s view, the most relevant hook to get conservatives on board (he emphasized the transpartisan appeal of defeating TPP) was the sacrificing of national sovereignty aspect, but I think bread and butter issues of whether people will legally and easily enter the US with a view to taking your job, at 30 cents on the dollar (say e.g.), will resonate more strongly.

Ideally, it would not have been necessary for me to write this letter, because non-dysfunctional, strategically adroit, American activists would have already made appeals to “all” organizations within civil society (including fraternities and sororities), with a view to propagate knowledge (such as was available, anyway) of TPP to the public, in general.

However, as I wrote in my letter:

“I have tried, and failed, to interact with prominent activists, so as to get them to behave in more strategically effective ways, literally for years. (E.g., I had an extended email conversation with Kevin Zeese, sent messages to Gary Null and Jack Rasmus, called Gary Null on his show, and extensively discussed the the strategic failures of reformists with a key Green Party strategist.) I simply have no faith in the strategic smarts of these people, however good their intentions may be, and we are literally running out of time to abort a monstrosity (TPP) that will restructure the very governance of society, and turn citizens such as you and I into more serf than citizen. ”

I’m going to send my letter (with some corrections) to your email address. I’d appreciate it if you a) published it as a diary and b) made your own personal ASK, of your readership, that they do the same wrt their own alma mater. They are welcome to copy my letter, verbatim, though they’d want to replace the scant detail about my alumnus status with their own.

Personally I say eliminate Intellectual Property Laws except weaponry. They are anti-market competition and needlessly hold back people from making a living or having a side business.

Removing of patent protections will result in greater quality products as people will then have to really work on maintaining customer loyalty or lose to another company that has greater community reach.

In other news, FSA/JAN has taken Jisr Shughur and pocketing thousands of Assad’s troops in Idlib Province and beginning to reduce that pocket. This is big, Assad has to pull troops from somewhere to protect Lataika and the best troops are tied up in Deir Ezzor which if he pulls them out would undo his entire Northern Line and give IS complete control of the Euphrates River from Raqqah to Al-Qaim and cost Assad one of his main airbases.

Economists are out in droves defending TPP since ‘free-trade’ is the one area they all agree. And, of course, they don’t actually address the legitimate criticism but predictably trot out ‘comparative advantage’. Which makes me laugh every single time I hear it because ‘comparative advantage’ implies balanced trade and has absolutely nothing to say about chronic NET import/export imbalances.

I once pressed an economist on this issue. Bottom line: The comparative advantage the US provides in the form of exports is that of superior financial asset creation.

THAT happened.

“Evil, not stupid.”

Well, I came away with from my discussion/debate with the Green Party dude with a negative view – he was being shifty. I find it plausible that he’s really working for the Democratic Party; but a less conspiratorial theory is that he didn’t want to appear as less of an expert than he wanted others to believe he was.

Even in his case, I’m not comfortable with calling him “evil”.

I completely reject calling Null and Rasmus evil. For one thing, they both at least have the humility to seek strategic insights from others.

I’m lukewarm about Zeese, but also reject calling him evil.

Since no one else has picked up on this, I’ll make note of it. Note the bold.

“What I am averse to is a bunch of ad hominem attacks and misinformation that stirs up the base but ultimately doesn’t serve them well. And I’m going to be pushing back very hard if I keep hearing that stuff,” Obama told a small group of reporters on the call.”

I think he gave the store away when he suggested criticism of the trade agreement amounts to a personal attack against himself.

“Obama made his bones by completing the Wall Street bailout. Now, before he finishes his term, he wants to give the people who can make him filthy rich after he’s no longer President a big, fat, slobbery kiss that will make them billions.”

Exactly.