Sirotablog
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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September 20, 2007 6:48 AM
Dem Freshmen Dig In for Battle Against Party Leadership
Illinois freshman Rep. Phil Hare (D) has thrown down the gauntlet today, authoring a scathing op-ed in the Politico indicting his party's leadership for joining with President Bush and corporate lobbyists to push a series of NAFTA-style trade deals with Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea (known as The Secret Trade Deal of 2007 for being forged behind closed doors and concealed from the public for months). Hare points out that his party won Congress on a promise to reform America's trade policy and that endorsing job-killing, wage-destroying trade pacts just months later is a travesty of the highest order.Let's be clear: Hare's op-ed is an act of courage, because the fight he is waging faces David-versus-Goliath odds against huge corporate campaign contributors - the Money Party that influences both political parties. As just one example, the drug cartel-connected Colombian government has put an army of former Clinton administration officials on its payroll to help push the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. That money buys not only votes, it buys rhetoric.
On a conference call this week with reporters about the trade deal, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY) - one of the 15 Democrats who provided a key vote for CAFTA - insisted that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is "an honest and courageous man." He said this just three months after the Associated Press reported that newly uncovered video shows Uribe "shaking hands with a militia leader who was arrested only weeks later on suspicion of involvement in multiple murders" and shows Uribe and the militia leader "together in a private meeting." As Hare notes in his op-ed, these militias have been responsible for executing some 2,000 union members in Colombia - "more than the rest of the world’s nations combined."
What little analysis that has been published in newspapers and magazines about this deal has been grossly skewed in favor of passing these deals - much like it was in the lead-up to NAFTA. And so my weekly national column for Creators Syndicate out tomorrow will explore these trade deals in some more depth - and in a way a Member of Congress like Hare simply cannot because of the confines of the office he holds. Stay tuned for that, and in the meantime, check out Hare's op-ed here.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
You can subscribe to Sirota's e-mail newsletter by going to davidsirota.com and signing up in the lefthand corner. To find out more about Sirota, download his official biography or see his recent media appearances. You can e-mail him at sirota@credoaction.com.
The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
Go Hare! Tell it like it is! Hoooah!
We need to campaign and elect more populists like this guy!
The sad thing about politics is the longer one stays, the more divorced from reality he or she becomes. When citizens of this country can have their employment tenure short termed or even contracted to less than a year, it is high time the same be done on the federal level. Oh yeah sure, some people will bullshit that limiting a politician's tenure is somehow "undemocratic". It's like saying that dictatorship is a "democracy" which it ain't. Neither of my Senators in MS even care to put on a Mississippi look let alone quit selling the state out thanks to the local and regional media in addition to MSM giving them more than enough cover. Of course, they might as well be honest on the lack of looks given their voting actions anyway. Limiting each Senator to one term only would make it easier to put social reform and economic populism into relevant status on Capital Hill. As for freshman Democrats, beware that not all of them are pro-populist. Some in fact ran a Blue Dog campaign and credit that to justify their pathetic voting record.
If anything it shows why people shouldn't vote Democratic when most of the fuckers are selling us out.
Look most Democrats are really cheap labor Democrats and indistinguishable from cheap labor conservatives. You can see this with with how the Democrats handle H1-B and L-1 visa workers and the illegal alien situation. They want lots more of each.
They want to smash the middle-class and blue-collars into the dirt. If they didn't they wouldn't support legislation like the SKIL bill and DREAM act.
Democrats are fucking disgrace and useless to the working class people in this country.
As far as "free" trade goes its even worse, you have the entire Democratic leadership leading the charge to pass even more job killing "free" trade treaties with hardly a peep from democratic blogosphere.
As far as I can tell there is no reason to vote Democrat anymore. They are just as pro-war as the Republicans and just as anti-worker as them as well.
Say hello to the one party state.
Let me first say good luck to David Sirota on the launch of his new syndicated column. As we all well know who inhabit his blog domain, nobody is harder working or more perspicacious in the political arena than David. I don't know about the rest of you, but I expect great things. May he always have time for this provocative and informative and uniquely intelligent blog. xxx We should always remember what we are dealing with here in the opposition and not take it too seriously. Otherwise, it is easy to become "politically depressed" and drop out. We are the disloyal, but honest opposition that is going to be defeated at this point, because the sellouts of both parties are getting all that corporate filthy lucre to spend lying to the uninformed and easily misled masses. To survive the depressing reality of the bad guys winning, you have to have fun taking up the challenge to defeat them. Kudos to Rep. Hare taking up the challenge, because it is the right thing to do. Believe it or not, sometimes it pays off. At least with respect from the other good guys. Perhaps the most important thing of all.
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