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THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST:
A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF THE HEARTLAND
December 1997 -- Volume 3, Number 12
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EDITORIAL
Fast Track is Down,
But the Game's Not Over
The people won a round last month when President Clinton and House Speaker
Newt Gingrich called off the push for a "Fast Track" vote in the House of
Representatives. Clinton was unable to persuade House Democrats to grease
the trade rules. He even found himself dickering with Republicans to get
them to sign onto the legislation that was designed by Big Business for Big
Business.
Clinton may have done the GOP a favor when he threw in the towel.
Polls show an overwhelming number of voters - Democrats, Republicans and
independents - oppose the legislation to strip Congress of its ability to
amend trade deals negotiated by the President. A record vote on Fast Track
would have focused popular resentment against a Big-Business-oriented
Congress in the next election.
Labor unions got much of the credit for stopping Fast Track - and
they apparently did their job in mobilizing members - but Lori Wallach,
director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, also credited an
electorate that is alarmed at the flow of jobs out of the United States
since the passage of NAFTA. "If labor contributions were the only factor,
NAFTA would have been defeated in 1993. This victory demonstrates a sea
change in U.S. politics with trade and globalization as hot political
issues on which voters nationwide carefully follow their elected
representatives."
Ralph Nader added: "As repeated polls demonstrate, [the American
people] will not accept further degradation of their standards of living so
that global mega corporations can increase their already record profits."
The pro-NAFTA press depicted the vote as a devastating blow to
President Clinton as protectionist Democrats turned against him, but that
ain't necessarily so. "The real question before us now is whether we
connect our values of environmental quality, worker and human rights to our
economic policy," House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said. "We've tried it
the Republican way and it's being rejected. I hope now we'll have a chance
to work for a trade policy that puts American values squarely into future
negotiations."
"This was not a debate about protectionism versus free trade," said
House Democratic Whip David E. Bonior. "Those of us who opposed this fast
track have altered the terms of the trade debate ... [and] stand ready to
work with the president to shape a new trade policy, one that addresses
worker rights, food safety, consumer protection and the environment."
Is Fast Track dead? Don't count on it. It will be harder to kill
than Dracula. It may come up again next spring, after corporation
executives have had time to work on resistant members of Congress. Too many
multinational corporations are counting on the benign-looking global trade
deals - negotiated in secret - to be dumped on Congress for a quick
up-or-down vote. Only later will the public at large realize that the deals
authorize international groups such as the World Trade Organization to
dismantle local, state and federal regulations that, in the eyes of the
WTO, "restrict trade". In practical terms, these global trade deals will
have much the same effect as the federal courts had earlier in this century
when they expanded the commerce clause of the Constitution to overrule
state regulation of corporations.
For example, the Fast Track legislation could enable the President
to send the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) to Congress
for a quick up-or-down vote. MAI is an international agreement to allow
corporations to sue state, local and federal governments to overturn
regulations that restrict trade. But this trade deal is practically
unreported in the nation's corporate press. Few Americans know about this
potentially fundamental transfer of power, because they depend on the
corporation-dominated media to tell them about it.
A search of the Nexis database of news stories shows only 14
mentions of the MAI in national or big-city U.S. newspapers since 1992, and
many of those mentions turned out to be letters to the editor. As of Oct.
30, Nexis listed only one citation for the MAI in the New York Times, on
September 14, 1997. There were only two mentions of MAI in the Washington
Post, on June 3, 1995, and September 26, 1997. (Thanks to Ellen Dannin of
San Diego for the research.)
To the dismay of the business establishment, free trade is reeling.
The House voted 356-64 in September to require U.S. trade representatives
to better protect local, state and federal governments threatened by the
WTO. (That was an implicit repudiation of the MAI.) Then on Nov. 4 the
House voted 234-182 against the Caribbean Basin Initiative, which the GOP
leadership had tried to slip through on the "Suspension Agenda" for
noncontroversial bills. The initiative would have restored tariff
exemptions that Caribbean and Central American countries enjoyed before
NAFTA. The vote against the Caribbean Basin Initiative showed the
widespread opposition to trade deals that would cost American workers their
jobs.
There is a need for fair trade deals that promote human rights and
health as well as trade, but those deals should be able to hold up to
public and congressional scrutiny. Freebooting trade deals, which are
negotiated in secret to allow multinational corporations to move their
manufacturing operations overseas to the cheapest work force they can find,
are unacceptable.
Embracing Reform
Two groups that are carrying on the fight for national sovereignty met last
month in the Kansas City area. The Reform Party held its founding
convention in Kansas City, Mo., and the Alliance for Democracy met in
nearby Atchison, Kan. While the Reform Party is popularly thought to stand
on the right wing and the Alliance comes from the left, they have a lot in
common in the middle.
The Alliance for Democracy, which last November drew 250 people to
a ranch near Kerrville, Texas, for its founding convention, this year drew
approximately 80 people to Atchison, 40 miles up the Missouri River from
Kansas City. Delegates were to adopt a permanent constitution and bylaws
for the group that Ronnie Dugger had brought together with his populist
"Call to Action" published in 1995.
But disagreements on the committee that was drafting the Alliance's
constitution threatened to derail the fledgling movement. Some of the
original founders and at least two local chapters boycotted the Atchison
convention, charging that the national officers were acting
undemocratically and without sufficient notification of the membership in
calling the convention. The main contention was over how much authority
would be vested in the national council and conventions, and how much would
be decided by direct vote of the entire membership.
In the end, the constitution and bylaws were approved, subject to
ratification by the entire membership. Dugger said he hopes the local
chapters can resume organizing and reaching out to other progressive
groups, as the organizational questions are resolved. The convention also
approved eight national campaigns. They include a campaign to stop the
Multilateral Agreement on Investment; an educational and political campaign
on the nature of corporations and corporate government; and a campaign to
end corporate personhood by reversing the judicial and legislative
decisions that have created and maintained the rights and power of
corporations.
"We're ready to recruit," Dugger said. "We're not looking to a
party. We're looking to a movement that coheres and gets strong enough and
independent enough of the Democratic Party, which is totally dependent on
the corporations, that we follow our own leadership in forming a political
movement to save the country." (For more information, contact the Alliance
for Democracy, 617-259-9395, email [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Meanwhile the Reformers, meeting in downtown Kansas City, were
trying to prepare for life after Ross Perot. Just three weeks earlier, a
group of 96 dissident Reform Party activists from 23 states, meeting in
Schaumburg, Ill., had declared their independence from Perot and formed the
American Reform Party, with an eye toward organizing the 11 million people
who voted for Perot in 1992 but couldn't bring themselves to vote for the
eccentric Dallas billionaire in 1996. (Contact the regular Reform Party at
972-450-8800 or ARP at 303-629-9306.
When it comes to issues, it's hard to tell the Reformers from
progressive populists. Pat Choate, the radio talk show host who was Perot's
running mate in 1996, spoke to the convention of "a new generation of
robber barons ... moving jobs overseas while the basic infrastructure of
the United States is wearing out faster than it is being replaced.
One-third of Americans lack access to basic health care, and education and
training has been allowed to slide to uncaring obsolescence. Neither the
Republican nor the Democrats will take on these issues, but we will," he
said to applause.
Choate said the Reform Party should run challengers against the 40
or 50 weakest Republican House members. "We may not win them all, but we
can draw enough votes to shift control of the House. Then we'll remind the
Democrats that if they too break faith with us, we'll turn them out once
again." He added, "This party henceforth can determine who will run
Congress and who will become the congressional potted plants.
Not all of the Reform Party positions are compatible with
progressive populism. But progressive populists ought to work with the
Reformers on common issues such as opening the ballot to alternative
parties, campaign finance reform, fair trade laws and encouraging small
farmers, small businesses and American manufacturing.
The Alliance and other progressive populist groups need to reach
people like David Johnston, a 60-year-old Reform Party delegate who works
two jobs, inventory control and bagging groceries in Altoona, Wisc. "I made
more in 1956, while I was going to college, than I do now working 60 hours
a week at two jobs," he said. "My daughter who just got out of college
figures she will be working until age 46 to pay her college debt."
When Johnston got out of college, he said, kids could go down to
the Uniroyal plant in Eau Claire for a good job. But that was before NAFTA.
"That opportunity ain't there," he said. He knows a 52-year-old Ph.D. who
once made $80,000 a year in Eau Claire is working as a janitor, even in
this time of "economic recovery."
The Reform Party convention drew a sampling of black, Hispanic and
Asian delegates of both sexes as well as the stereotypical angry white men.
Some of them, such as Lenora Fulani, former presidential candidate of the
New Alliance Party (no relation to the Alliance for Democracy), are
suspected of being opportunists seeking the Reform Party's federal campaign
money in 2000.
Johnston said the Reform Party has attracted people of different
points of view, but they all agree on the need for reform. "I've been a
Democrat and worked for a Democratic governor, and I've been a Republican,
but I can't wait any longer. I don't have that much time. I've been through
the system and we need something different."
- Jim Cullen
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TABLE OF CONTENTS, December 1997:
(Articles marked with * are available at our web site,
http://www.eden.com/~reporter.)
EDITORIAL
Fast Track Down, but the Game Goes On
JIM HIGHTOWER
Japan Makes a 'Green Car'
Corporate Extortion in Cashmere
Instant Loans=Instant Ripoff
Zapping Meat
Merger Mayhem
The Official American Test
* LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A Question of Self-Governance
Fleshing Our Privatization
Spare Me Ralls' Satire
Just the Facts; Smith is from N.H.
* RURAL ROUTES/Fred Stokes
The Changing Structure of Agriculture
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Elections: You've Got to Pay to Play
Report/A.V. Krebs
Who's Been Workin' on the Railroad?
CALAMITY HOWLER/A.V. Krebs
Big, Bigger, Biggest
Appeasing Investors with Worker Anxiety
Giving Away the Store to the Supermarket
Monsanto Scolds European Union
MICHAEL MOORE
Is the Left Nuts? Or is it Me?
REPORT/A.V. Krebs
E. coli Causes Food Safety Review
LABOR TALK/Harry Kelber
Chile on 'Fast Track'
WORK IN PROGRESS
WASHINGTON WATCH/Doug Ireland
Party of Losers
COMMENT/Daryl Lease
Computers Could Solve Fundraising Problems
THE SCOOP/Bob Harris
Behind IRS Reform: Shifting the Burden
COMMENT/Delia Yeager
Poor Equality
* COMMENT/Art Cullen
What Iowa would Frank Miller Draw?
* COVER/Bennett Davis
Power to the People
* FEATURE/Craig McGrath
Brains R Us: Getting Right in the Mind
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Congressional Schlemmer
DAVID MORRIS
Why Do We Encourage Advertising?
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW/Sam Smith
Botching Probes is No Bar
NEWSPEAK/Wayne Grytting
Superior Wages Await
PRIMAL SCREED/
James McCarty Yeager
Scenes of Visionary Enchantment
TALES FROM EAST TEXAS/
Carol Countryman
Hookers and Handguns Nail Nixon
GLOBAL CITIZEN/Donella Meadows
The Greenhouse Problem
MEDIA BEAT/Norman Solomon
Press Flails as Lawmakers Make Mess
TED RALL
So Many Court Dates, So Little Time
THE AMERICAS/Patrisia Gonzales & Roberto Rodriguez
And Education for All
* DISPATCHES
New Party Scores on Election Day; Couch Wins Election Again; USDA Poised
with Organic Standards.
JESSE JACKSON
The People Speak Against Fast Track
IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST/
Ralph Nader:
Workers Win in Comp Vote
HAL CROWTHER
Games Without Shame
CHARLES LEVENDOSKY
Grazing Bill Knocks Public Off Lands
Congress Chokes on Line-Item Veto
MOLLY IVINS
Saving Money Off Disabled Children
Dan Burton's Silly Season
NAFTA on the Border
COMMENT/John Buell
Ten Lessons from October's Markets
CHARLIE WILSON
I'm Not Drunk, Pa, It's Only 3.2 Beer
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THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST
James M. Cullen, Editor
P.O. Box 150517, Austin, Texas 78715-0517
Phone: 512-447-0455
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home page: http://www.eden.com/~reporter
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