The May Day National Strike, and Unregulated Trade as Leading Cause of Migration

As the May Day national strike approaches, it might be worth revisiting the leading cause of migration from Latin America to the U.S.: Unregulated life-destructive trade policies. These unfair trade agreements and organizations (NAFTA, FTAA, WTO, etc) exist EXCLUSIVELY to protect only the interests of huge transnational corporations against local worker and environmental protections, the agreements themselves strictly prohibiting the later as a condition of trade. This must be turned upside down. Neither congress nor the corporate media giants have yet fully acknowledged this as the root cause of migration, poverty, displacement, and a myriad of other social and economic problems worldwide. Too, it comes with some bit of disappointment that even the immigrants and progressives themselves have been content to frame this only as a immigrant rights issue, rather than the international labor, environmental, and health issue that it truly is.

Not only can migration be slowed or even halted, but the standard of living in the U.S. could also be raised, by ensuring that the same life-protective rights that are enjoyed in the U.S. are also enjoyed in Mexico and everywhere else. Instead of favoring only corporate profit, the terms of trade agreements should also impose incentives and "conditions for trade" on prospective government and corporate participants in order to ensure labor and environmental standards are comparable across borders.

Here are a couple of recent postings at TBTW, with much thanks to David Sirota, Randi Rhodes, and Mike Malloy, who more than most others, have gone to great lengths to expose the most censored issue in the U.S.--unregulated life-destructive corporate globalized trade:

Root Causes of Illegal Immigration: The Big Lie Systematically Propagated by Corporate Media Economic Reporting

The Taboo Subject at the Core of the Immigration Debate

For the Long Run: The Employee Free Choice Act

No panacea, but a significant step in the right direction:

Employee Free Choice Act or EFCA (H.R. 1696 and S. 842) the first major attempt to reform labor law since the 1970s.

[ . . . ]

EFCA promises to take what is now a nasty, bruising, and hopelessly lawyer-dominated organizing process and turn it into a simple and equitable matter of getting a majority of employees to sign union cards. In addition to simple card check or majority verification, EFCA provides mechanisms to prevent employers from starting a war of attrition against workers once they have selected a union by sending the issue to mediation if 90 days pass without a contract. It also contains several protections for workers including treble back pay for the discriminatory discharge of union organizers.

War in Iraq Set to Be More Expensive Than Vietnam

In 1973, the U.S. was nearly bankrupt from Vietnam, Nixon halted issuance of gold in return for notes since an international run on the gold reserve had left it half depleted, and the economy was about to collapse. Kissenger engineered the attack on Israel and Israel's harsh response against Egypt and Syria, so as to provide a pretext for the Arab Oil embargo, which in turn drove up the cost of oil so much that the gold-dollar was replaced with the petro-dollar, thereby saving the U.S. economy from complete collapse, because oil from Alaska and the Artic finally became profitable. Now, the U.S. is in a similar situation with record deficits, partly due to the war-profiteering surrounding Bush's so-called "war on terrorism." But what will save a sinking U.S. economy with the oil already nearing unsustainable highs and with no further significant domestic petroleum sources?

Ports Deal II: Bush to Approve Takeover of 9 U.S. Military Plants by Dubai, UAE

Will this go from a whisper to a scream?

Exxon's 1st Quarter Profit Soars to $8.4 billion

And that's just Exxon. That doesn't account for the profits of all the other petroleum corporations. Meanwhile, Bush plans to slash only a mere 200 million a year from the billions (ie, many thousands of millions) of annual taxpayer subsidies to the petroleum industry, otherwise known as corporate welfare, while hundreds of thousands of poor American children continue to go homeless. This is shameful. Bush's 200 million is but a tiny faction of one percent of the petroleum industry's profits. In other words, Bush's proposal does nothing but let the petroleum industry continue to reap mega-profits, a hefty percentage of which is over and beyond the pump value since those profits are subsidized, in part, by taxpayers. Is this what America bargained for when she let the petroleum-industry-incarnate occupy the white house?

America's Rags-to-Riches Dream an illusion: Study

Excerpt:

America may still think of itself as the land of opportunity, but the chances of living a rags-to-riches life are a lot lower than elsewhere in the world, according to a new study published on Wednesday.

The likelihood that a child born into a poor family will make it into the top five percent is just one percent, according to "Understanding Mobility in America", a study by economist Tom Hertz from American University.

By contrast, a child born rich had a 22 percent chance of being rich as an adult, he said.

Joe Libertarian might account for the 20 percent difference by suggesting that most of that 20 percent is comprised of those who don't want to be rich. While that might be true for some, I doubt Joe Libertarian's assumption would apply to many in an America where wealth determines self-value for practically everyone, irrespective of whether many will admit it.

The War On Immigrants

This is another lengthy in depth analysis from Lendmen that I haven't had time to read, but suspect it's worth sharing. Will update later.

The Corporate Control of Society and Human Life

I haven't had time to read this yet, but it looks well worth the time. Here's the intro:

Large transnational corporations are clearly the dominant institution of our time. They’re preeminent throughout the world but especially in the Global North and its epicenter in the US. They control or greatly influence what we eat and drink, where we live, what we wear, how we get most of our essential services like health care and even what we’re taught in schools up to the highest levels.

GAO: 8 Iraqi Provinces Unstable

The Bush regime said there were only four unstable provinces. As it turns out, only three are stable:

Vice President Dick Cheney predicted in June 2005 the insurgency was in its "last throes."

But new data revealed by the GAO suggests the opposite is true.

According to the U.S. Embassy/Multinational Force Iraq National Coordination Team's Provincial Stability Assessment generated in March, just three of Iraq's provinces are stable, and all of them are in so-called Kurdistan in northern Iraq.

Link to website of GAO, the nation's top watchdog.

Bush Regime's Failure Reflected in Latest Snow Job Appointee

The Bush regime must be really desperate if their selection to deliver snow jobs considers Bush an "embarrassment." Sirota offers an in depth analysis of The Meaning of Tony Snow.

Experts: Global Warming Behind 2005 Hurricanes

Did Bush get on the wrong side of CNN? As much as CNN has shilled for him and exploited women with non-news distractions like "missing white women," and as hard as Bush has worked to silence the scientific consensus that global warming is the biggest global threat, I'm a bit surprised that CNN let this one slip through the censors.

Man Who Aided the Corporate Takeover of Democratic Party NOW Paves the Way for the Corporate Takeover of the Internet

Open Thread

Question: Readership here is small, seemingly 5 to 10 per day? I don't know who all the readers are, but was wondering if TBTW is of value to any of them, or if I should just abandon the blog for other activities?

FAIR: The Expanding Gap Between Media and Public Attitudes on the Economy

When corporate media giants say the economy is getting better, they simply mean that the wealthiest are getting a greater slice of the pie while the majority of Americans' slices are getting smaller and smaller. Where's the breaking point, where spewing the big lie undermines the media's credibility? When will the corporate media giants have to admit that the average American's main indicator for an "improving economy" is an "increase in buying power" per hour of labor sacrificed?!

CIA Purge of Patriot Targets Wrong Official

Who cares if it endangers national security when the "Leaker in Chief" purges anyone and everyone, just to silence the single leaker who disclosed that the "Leaker in Cheif" is violating international law." Flashback to the Saturday Night Massacre?

Rich Nations Use IMF-World Bank Meeting to Gain Profits from Poor Nations

Reverse Robin Hood, again--robbing the poor to give to the rich.

Profits, Not Crude Oil, Are Driving Pump Price Spike

Bush's Double Standard On Leaks

Confirmed: Bush Lied America Into War

For the few remaining people who don't yet realize it, this should bury any notion that there's a shred of honesty within the Bush regime.

According to a Top-Level U.S. Spy, the CIA Informed Bush Prior to the War that their Best Intelligence Revealed that Iraq Had No WMD

Drumheller, a 26 year veteran spy for the CIA, reveals that how excited the Bush administration was to find out that the CIA had penetrated Hussein's inner circle prior to the war:

Meanwhile, the CIA had made a major intelligence breakthrough on Iraq'’s nuclear program. Naji Sabri, Iraq'’s foreign minister, had made a deal to reveal Iraq'’s military secrets to the CIA. Drumheller was in charge of the operation.

"This was a very high inner circle of Saddam Hussein. Someone who would know what he was talking about," Drumheller says.

"You knew you could trust this guy?" Bradley asked.

"We continued to validate him the whole way through," Drumheller replied.

According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high-level meeting at the White House, including the president, the vice president and Secretary of State Rice.

At that meeting, Drumheller says, "They were enthusiastic because they said, they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis."

What did this high-level source tell him?

"He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program," says Drumheller.

But,when tintelligencence revealed that Iraq had no active WMD program, says Drumheller, the excitement immediately disappeared and the was thereafter completely ignored:

The policy was set," Drumheller says. "The war in Iraq was coming. And they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."

Drumheller expected the White House to ask for more information from the Iraqi foreign minister.

But he says he was taken aback by what happened. "The group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they're no longer interested," Drumheller recalls. "And we said, 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said, 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.'"

"And if I understand you correctly, when the White House learned that you had this source from the inner circle of Saddam Hussein, they were thrilled with that," Bradley asked.

"The first we heard, they were. Yes," Drumheller replied.

Once they learned what it was the source had to say—--that Saddam Hussein did not have the capability to wage nuclear war or have an active WMD program, Drumheller says, "They stopped being interested in the intelligence."

For U.S. leadership to regain any credibility, the entire Bush regime must be impeached and removed from office. They're directly responsible for the murder of tens of thousandsinnocentcent people, including thousands of U.S. citizens.

Activists Disrupt World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz’s Press Conference

Excerpt:

What followed the protestor’s removal was described by one attendee as “mayhem”. Support people for the protestors began to hand out a statement explaining the action and holding mini impromptu press conference with the dozens of press that had followed the protestors out of the room. Other press who were not in the room at the time of the action came sprinting down the hall way in the hopes of catching the action. IMF and World Bank civil society liaisons frantically tried to curtail the activities of the activists. One IMF staff person looked at those seated in the civil society chairs that were not a part of the action and shouted quiet shrilly “you civil society people are so screwed!” Another IMF staff person, while looking rather frantic shouted “this is not supposed to be happening! There is no security in here!”

Follow more news from the D.C. protest of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank thoughout the weekend, here!

Steeling from the Poor to Give to the Rich -- Reverse Robin Hood

As the American worker's buying power continues to decline and U.S. poverty continues to rise, the workers' relative loss of income from the fruits of their labor translates into a gain for the wealthy. The workers' decreased wages means increased profits for stockholders in a stockmarket boon that creates more millionaires than ever. To top it off, Bush's taxbreaks for the wealthy come at the expense of slashing public health programs, while the taxes are increasingly slated to subsidize corporations and lavish incomes to their wealthy shareholders, even while some of those very corporations experience record profits.

Of course, the current U.S. regime and their corporate media pundits continue the big lie that the economy is in great shape when, even without adjusting for deficit spending, it's tragic for the average American. The current regime deceptively cites a rise in jobs, productivity, and the stockmarket. What they omit: the job increase is an increase slave wage jobs that won't support a family; increased productivity comes from a combination of increased use of machinery to replace good paying jobs for humans and from more sweat and blood from the worker who isn't compensated for working harder; a rising stockmarket only benefits a tiny percentage of the population, despite the fact that nearly half the population has some sort of stock.

The equation is simple: Install corporate party politicians (democrats and republicans) who agree to a scheme of steeling from the poor to give to the rich. This is otherwise known, simply, as the "Reverse Robinhood" effect.

MAY-DAY, MAY-DAY: U.S. Begins National Sweep and Detention of Migrant Workers

Let the workers go! Let the workers go!

Mexico Joins May Day Action With Boycott Against U.S. Corporatism

Are boycotts agsint the U.S. going to go international?

Workin' It: A New Air America Show on Worker Rights

From the website:

Workin’ It is a new weekly, one-hour radio show on Air America Radio focusing on working life in America. Hosted by comedienne and author Jackie Guerra, the lively magazine program provides a break from the daily grind to make you think, laugh, and do something about the declining state of workers’ rights. Workin’ It is produced in partnership with the workers’ rights advocacy organization, American Rights at Work

L.A. Port Truckers Join Call for May 1 GENERAL STRIKE!

Right-Wing Fascists Advocate Mass Murder of Immigrants & Politicians

Excerpt:

"All of you who think there's a peaceful solution to these invaders are wrong. We're going to have to start killing these people," neo-Nazi radio host Hal Turner posted to his website the day after 500,000 immigrant rights activists marched through downtown Los Angeles.

"I advocate using extreme violence against illegal aliens. Clean your guns. Have plenty of ammunition. Find out where the largest gathering of illegal aliens will be near you. Go to the area well in advance, scope out several places to position yourself and then do what has to be done."

If Turner were a Muslim or Arabic U.S. citizen, I bet he'd be arrested already! Why are white non-Muslims permitted to promote terrorism?

9th Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Homeless Can No Longer Be Prosecuted for Sitting and Sleeping

This is a major victory for poor people, and could set precedent in further case law throughout the rest of the country. Sanity, for many, may depend not only on rest and sleep, but also on living without fear of being punished for resting or sleeping. It appears that the court ruling is contingent, however, on a state of affairs where the number of homeless people exceeds available housing slated for the homeless in the area. But, the ramifications are clear, and the burden is on municipalities to provide housing other than incarceration if they wish to continue attempts to sanitize the streets. Otherwise, the unwitting public will just have to live with unsavory and predictable byproducts of anti-tax capitalism gone mad to the point that it attempts to deprive people the right to be responsible for themselves and/or for one another.

Immigration Doesn't Result in Falling Wages in U.S.

Unfettered regulatory-free trade combined with global corporatism deflates wages and living standards in every country, the U.S. not least of which. Time to wake up to the root cause! Immigrants don't set wages low, corporate profiteers do--by design or by force.

Bush Regime Refuses to Inform Congress of UAE's New Bid to Take Over U.S. Defense Contractors

It's not the least surprising that Bush, the corporate incarnate, would withhold any details about a deal to sell manufacturers of components for U.S. defense to a terrorist state with lots of petroleum. But, who, in the first place, would ever have imagined that, under unregulated "free" trade agreements (ie, regulatory-free trade agreements), the U.S. might be compelled to sell off its military defense (and maybe everything else) to the highest bidder. There would almost be a poetic justice in it.

At issue is a not a matter of where we the people draw the line, but the essential matter at hand involves people rising up to reject and/or transform agreements and entities whose unregulated and undemocratic existence perpetrates most of the more extreme injustices worldwide. At issue is democracy itself, the sovereignty of a nation's right to self-determination. Should the WTO or any outside (trade) entity be allowed to act as a sovereign higher government? Should such an external entity be allowed to act as government with veto power over U.S. laws and regulatory processes? Should such an entity have the power to punish nations for establishing life-protective regulations which interfere with corporate profit? Should a higher governing entity exist without the democratic consent of any citizenry, without any accountability to anything except the profit margins of corporate giants?

This is what the U.S. has embraced. It's tantamount to the collective corporate take-over of governments worldwide, the consequence of which is that only corporate interests are represented, and every other interest, including the democratic will of the people, is crushed. This is also analogous to state fascism, a glorified process that is above reproach as it terminates millions of people's right to exist, especially those who challenge it or refuse to participate in it. It is to institutionalize the perpetual sacrificial offering of mountains of human carnage for a contract with the money gods. There are countless alternatives to this.

A Simple Solution to Simultaneously Lower Income Taxes, Create Economic Growth, & Save the Planet

Tax and fine polluters!

The practice of reducing income taxes while increasing levies for air, water, and soil pollution--has swept nations from Singapore to Sweden, said Brown, a pioneer in the merging of economics and ecology. He called it ''environmental tax shifting''; in many countries it also is referred to as environmental tax reform.

Tax Gasoline before the corporations raise the profit margin so high that they take the lion's share of the inevitable rise in price !

Germany and Sweden lead Western Europe in environmental tax reform. By 2001, a four-year plan adopted by Germany in 1999 had lowered fuel use by five percent, said Brown. It also accelerated growth in the renewable energy sector, creating some 45,400 jobs by 2003 in the wind industry alone. Brown, citing industry figures, said he expected the figure to rise to 103,000 new jobs by 2010.

In 2001, Sweden launched a 10-year environmental tax shift designed to convert some $3.9 billion of taxes from income to environmentally destructive activities. The average household has seen its income tax bill reduced by around $1,100.

That burden has not disappeared. Rather, it has shifted to vehicle and fuel taxes--a central plank of Sweden's plan to be free of oil use by 2025.

The sensible conclusion:

Some 2,500 economists, including eight Nobel Prize winners, also have endorsed the concept of environmental tax shifts.

Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw wrote in Fortune magazine: ''Cutting income taxes while increasing gasoline taxes would lead to more rapid economic growth, less traffic congestion, safer roads, and reduced risk of global warming--all without jeopardizing long-term fiscal solvency.''

The alternate conclusion:

. . . a quote from Oystein Dahle, a former vice president of Exxon for Norway and the North Sea. ''Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth,'' Dahle said. ''Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.'

This is the least we should do RIGHT NOW to slow our destruction of our own species and thousands of others along with it.

Bush/Clinton Economy Adds More Slave Wage Jobs

Note, growth is concentrated in jobs as servants to the wealthy. Excerpt:

. . . manufacturing jobs, which tend to pay more than average, fell by 5,000 in March, after declining in February. Over the past year alone, factories shed 56,000 positions. Construction, another high-wage industry, added only 7,000 jobs in March after gaining an average of 40,000 jobs in the two previous months.

The biggest gains last month were in the lowest paying sectors. These include such categories as restaurants and hotels, retailing, health care, and state and local governments.

Then there's global competition. Because companies in most industries are unable to raise their prices because of the influx of low-priced goods from abroad, they try to hold down their costs as much as possible -- and labor is most firms' biggest cost.

Advances in technology, including the rise of the Internet, have enabled many companies to outsource a number of their jobs, as you know.

[ . . . ]

Finally, there's the shadow labor force. These are the people who have officially dropped out of the workforce over the past six years, bringing the labor force participation rate down from a peak of nearly 68% of the over-16 population, to 66% today.

When you count these folks in, and those who are either working at jobs beneath their skills, or part-time when they would prefer full-time, you can see that there's still lots of competition for jobs.

So, adding into the unemployment rate those who either stopped collecting unemployment and are no longer counted, and those who are working low-paying and/or part-time jobs which can't sustain them, the unemployment rate (or more precisely, the underemployment rate) can then be considered to be rising instead of falling. What is a more important figure than the unemployment rate is the average workers buying power, income relative to cost of living adjusted for inflation. The average U.S. workers buying power has declined for decades, now to the point where the average American would consider the U.S. economy in poor condition even if the official unemployment rate were zero. Meanwhile, the rich are getting richer at an unprecendented exponential rate.

Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops to Terror Group

It should be no surprise that current administration (or past ones) would support terrorists who murder U.S. citizens and support "U.S. enemies." Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset despite his anti-western terror, and he's still one of the current administrations leading assets for provoking fear in the U.S. public and channeling that fear into hysterical and hasty action. Using Saudi Arabia as a front, the Reagan/Bush-I administration helped put the Taliban in power to fight the USSR. Under the reign of Bush II, the U.S. deposed the Taliban when the later wouldn't accommodate U.S. petroleum/corporate interests subsequently and presently secured by permanent U.S. military bases in that and neighboring countries. Despite propaganda to the contrary, the U.S. is perfectly content to allow a resurgence of the Taliban and its repression as long as it doesn't interfere with U.S. business. Whatever is expedient to the corporate interest of the moment knows no moral constraint. The U.S. and Britain were for Hitler before they were against Hitler, and would've been for Hitler again had it been expedient. Such back and forth switching has been common place every since.

Movements Bubbling Up to Challenge Trickle-Down Economics

The Rise of Fascism in America

Corporate-Run U.S. City Holds First Election in 25 Years

This could almost qualify as a scaled-down model of any corporation where workers have no vote, except in this case, the city is the corporation:

On Tuesday night, a clerk promptly carried a metal ballot box into the City Council chamber and announced he would not count the votes.

The bizarre, and some say illegal, decision was just the latest eyebrow-raising political turn in Vernon, a city on the edge of Los Angeles where the mayor and council members have served for decades without opposition and most of the voters hold municipal jobs while living in city-owned houses.

[ . . . ]

Founded in 1905, the five-square-mile city consists in large part of rutted roads, railroad tracks, and a densely packed maze of warehouses, meatpacking plants, fuel tanks and an occasional vacant lot. There is no high school, no movie theater, no parkland. The city's motto: "Exclusively Industrial."

Under an unusual arrangement, Vernon owns virtually all the roughly two-dozen homes in town. In its century-long history, it has had just four mayors, all related to its founders. Mayor Leonis Malburg has been on the council since the Eisenhower administration and has been mayor since 1974.

The last contested election was in 1980; the city had not bothered to hold an election since then because there were no challengers who qualified for the ballot.

Paying the Beast to Have a Voice: Investment Activism

In May of 2005, representatives of Corp Watch and Global Exchange, both investors in Halliburton, drew national attention at Halliburton's shareholders' meeting where they spoke out against the company's growing list of labor and human rights abuses. Similarly, Sierra Club purchases stocks in corporations in order to participate as shareholders and promote change internally, and it argues that this is one (perhaps the only, as the might have us think) method available to stop corporate encroachment on planetary life-support. As Global Exchange investors are targeting Hershey over child labor on cocoa farms, the tactic appears to be gaining momentum. But, to what end? And, at what cost?

Forced to compete within the global money-value scheme set in place by transnational corporatism, activism finds itself submitting to a price tag, as do nearly all things which are to retain entitlement to exist. I question whether feeding the beast by purchasing shares in order to have a voice is better than traditional tactics, like the widespread disruption planned for May 1. Even though disruption may be more expensive in the short run, its impact is felt universally and isn't isolated to the internal workings of those corporations in which activists purchase shares. If strong enough, disruption can force more people everywhere to take a stand and can get results faster. Too, it avoids financing atrocities and may even cost less in the long run. A wiser investment might be to fund "strike and boycott" life-support infrastructure which, in turn, also fosters widespread communication channels and lasting community.

Federal Government Considers Letting Wal-Mart Take Over Banks

Traditionally, Wal-mart's current retail monopoly would have already been busted-up to ensure fair competition and fair market entry. Instead, future growth of Wal-mart banking on the level of Wal-mart retail could reduce prospects of loans to existing or entering competitors. Already, retail monopoly tosses out the window the "fair competition" argument for capitalism's raison d'etre. With Wal-Mart also controlling start-up lending, "fair competition" would be reduced to mere doublespeak. To further understand the problem of letting Wal-Mart enter the banking sector, check out Sirota's article and the background links their.

Supply-and-Demand Solutions to Migration

Sirota is right on it again (SF Gate):

Why is the supply of decent-paying jobs in Mexico so low? Therein lies an issue neither Democrats nor Republicans want to address, because it touches on public policies both have supported.

[ . . . ]

A decade after NAFTA's passage, America is still hemorrhaging the good-paying jobs that NAFTA was supposed to create. As for Mexico, the Washington Post's report on the 10-year anniversary of NAFTA told the story: 19 million more Mexicans now live in poverty than before the pact was signed. Similarly, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich points out, "Mexico's real wages are lower than they were before [NAFTA]." And because NAFTA included no provisions to force companies to improve Mexican working conditions, jobs that were created in Mexico still pay near-slave wages For instance, the Associated Press noted this week that "Many young [Mexicans] have manual jobs on minimum wage of $5 a day."

[ . . . ]

The best way to stop illegal entry into our country from Mexico is to tamp down the demand by Mexicans to enter this country illegally. After all, no wall, no fence, no border security measure can be as effective as reducing the demand for entry. This means reforming our trade policy to include serious wage, workplace and human-rights provisions so that cross-border commerce actually improves the lives of Mexican workers to the point where they no longer feel the dire economic need to break our immigration laws.

Think about it this way: Had NAFTA lifted 19 million Mexicans out of poverty as promised instead of helping to drive 19 million Mexicans into poverty, you can bet the flood of illegal immigrants across our southern border would be a trickle instead of the flood it is today.

Political Upheaval: Latin America Challenges the U.S. Corporate Trade Regime

Throughout Latin America (and much of the rest of the world), whether revolution by force or revolution at the ballot box, citizens are ousting leaders aligned with the U.S. dominated global corporate trade regime which has forced hundreds of millions of people into poverty worldwide since the 1980s. Already, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela have moved left. Peru is poised to move left, and even Costa Rica and Mexico may also.

Also, in recent months or years, Israel, Germany, and Spain moved left. Presently, the millions of people in the streets of France just gained labor concessions from their rightwing government which itself may soon be ousted. Near the Balkans, Italy's right-wing corporatist supporter of U.S.-war profiteering, Silvio Berlusconi, is poised to be ousted by leftist Romano Prodi. Also, the U.S. sponsored Orange revolution in Ukraine was just reversed so that alignment shifts away from the west and back to Russia.

U.S. access to petroleum may grow limited. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has indicated he's looking to expand his huge reserves of petroleum to markets other than the U.S. Mexico's leading candidate for president, the leftist mayor of Mexico City, "LÃpez Obrador has pledged to block attempts to open the oil and gas industry --which is state-owned--to private investment." As far as access to the Caspianean oil region, on the southern side, Afghanistan and Iraq haven't yet proved hospitable to pipelines, and Iran is but a pipe dream. Already, other small countries south of the Caspianean Sea have already begun ousting U.S. military bases, a necessary response to popular discontent with the U.S. And, experts are saying the Pakistani military is on the brink of swinging in favor of the people who are largely opposed to their president's close relations with the U.S., and specifically his allowing U.S. military to operate within Pakistan.

UAE and Saudi Arabia have indicated they may shift away from the petro-dollar to the Euro. China, the top financier of the U.S.'s 9 trillion dollar deficit, has said it is considering no longer propping up the U.S. economy by purchasing treasury bonds. If all these overtures come to fruition and the trend continues to sweep the world, the U.S. may soon become politically and economically isolated, even unable to dominate militarily without access to cheap oil. The good news is that this will allow the people within the U.S. a chance to establish social and economic justice which was prevented by the unjust corporatism propagated by rightwing regimes from Reagan through Clinton. For the first time in a quarter of a century, there is light at the end of the dark tunnel of U.S. sponsored corporate fascism that has left tens of millions dead and hundreds of millions in poverty.

The Debate You're Not Hearing: Immigration and Trade

From Andrew Christie at Common Dreams:

The exploitation of less developed countries in the economic globalization framework known as free trade has resulted in their financial and environmental impoverishment - both major causes of global overpopulation and increased migration.

Bush Must Answer to America Now!

Mr. Bush, did you authorize Mr. Cheney and/or Mr. Libby to leak to the media Valerie Plame/Wilson's identity as a CIA covert agent?

Yes, or No.

Did you authorize anyone else to do the same?

Yes, or No.

The public must demand an answer from Bush NOW!

The Myth that the U.S. Provides Security in Iraq

Blumenthal at Salon:

Under the pretense that Iraq is being pacified, the U.S. military is partially withdrawing from hostile towns in the countryside and parts of Baghdad. By reducing the numbers of soldiers the administration can claim its policy is working going into the midterm elections. But the jobs that the military will no longer perform are being sloughed off onto State Department "provincial reconstruction teams" led by Foreign Service officers. The stated rationale is that the teams will win Iraqi hearts and minds by organizing civil functions.

The Pentagon has informed the State Department that it will not provide security for these officials and that State should hire mercenaries for protection instead.

Some time in recent months, I remember reading, though I can't remember where, that a high ranking U.S. military officer in Iraq said that the U.S. military doesn't do security for the Iraqis as the myth goes. I also recall reading that Iraq's now so unsafe the U.S. military hardly leaves their bases, and that westerners, including journalists, hardly ever leave the Green Zone. Now, Blumenthal reveals that the State Department has been advised that the U.S. military will not provide their officials any security in Iraq, and that for protection they should contract private mercanaries who will not be included in the U.S. tallies of war fatalities--as if private is not public.

Globalization and the American Labor Movement

From Stewart Acuff, Organizing Director of the AFL-CIO. Excerpt:

Corporate driven and fueled globalization is concentrating wealth and constricting freedom.

Duh! Unfortunately, as is typical of the AFL-CIO, this article is all problem and no solution. Since the early days, the AFL-CIO resorts more and more to wimpish do-nothing whining that unions no longer have the right or power to collectively bargain. What's needed to regain such rights is FORCE! Many people died to establish those rights in the first instance, but the AFL-CIO continues to pretend that it will regain those rights by simply educating the public and supporting political campaigns. This is delusional, because wealth can always outspend them. Labor must get aggressive and present a real threat before the holders of wealth will make concessions. Look right now at France. Rather than whine, labor should simply do what's necessary and efficient. That it doesn't do so leads me to wonder whether the AFL-CIO exist mainly to siphon of workers organizational activity, delude them into thinking the AFL-CIO can solve the problem, while the AFL-CIO tacitly ensures workers don't succeed.

Hillary Clinton Profile Degenerates Into Free Trade Worship Session

Sirota's really tearing it up! Screw Hillary!

Union Reveals Wal-Mart is Blocking U.S. Port Security Measures

Anything for higher profit, hugh? Once again, Wal-Mart hates America!

24 Wisconsin Cities Vote to Withdraw U.S. Military from Iraq

I know key activists in this campaign who didn't really expect such a landslide in a "purple" state ("politically bipolar" might be a more accurate description of state notorious for producing such extremes as Gaylord Nelson and Joe McCarthy). With the overwhelming majority voting to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq, activists plan on using the momentum to launch additional referendums on ballots in more cities this fall, throughout Wisconsin and around the country. This re-affirms that Washington Democrats and Republicans alike are increasingly out of touch with their constituencies. Let us hope people everywhere rise up and demand an end to the war-profiteering that guarantees huge campaign funding to the two dominant parties, and guarantees a huge expense to the livelihoods of future generations of ordinary working Americans already driven into the hole by 9 trillion dollars of debt.

The Taboo Subject at the Core of the Immigration Debate

Finally, this weekend, Air America's Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy broke the silence about migration problems stemming from unregulated life-destructive corporate market practices. Now, David Sirota hits a home run:

The answer points to the silver lining in the current furor over immigration: namely, that Americans' concerns over mass illegal immigration provides an opportunity to educate the public about the very tangible, real benefits of bettering conditions in the developing world. Demand that our bought-off politicians start reforming our trade policies to actually help ordinary workers - as opposed to only executives at multinational corporations - and our country will start moving to address global poverty, unfair competition, and illegal immigration.

Sirota also spots penetration of the issue into Time magazine. Keep on coming with it! This is the world's best chance since Seattle '99.

McDonald's Faces Protests Over Farm Wages