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 3:15 PM
Money Party vs. People Party: Dueling Letters
In the ongoing battle between the People Party and the Money Party in Washington, we get dueling circulating on Capitol Hill today.
The first is a letter signed by Senators Brown (OH), Dorgan (ND), Stabenow (MI), Rockefeller (WV), Sanders (VT) and Casey (PA) demanding to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez demanding to know why, in his desperate attempts to pass a Colombia Free Trade Deal, he would say tell National Journal this week that violence against union leaders in Colombia is “not a problem" when in fact more union leaders are executed in Colombia than the rest of the world's countries combined.
The second is a letter being circulated by the Bush White House to Democrats on Capitol Hill demanding Democrats back off their opposition to lobbyist-written trade deals with Peru, Colombia, Panama and South Korea. The letter is packaged as being signed by former Democratic congresspeople, Cabinet secretaries, and Clinton administration aides. What is not said is that almost half of these people signing the letter are or very recently were also registered corporate lobbyists whose clients have an interest in the passage of the trade deals. They include:
James Bacchus
Cal Dooley
Michael Barnes
Don Bonker
Sam Gibbons
Bennett Johnston
Anne Alonzo
Bruce Babbitt
Stuart Eizenstat
Eric Farnsworth
Gordon Giffin
Marc Ginsberg
Dan Glickman
Chuck Manatt
David Marchick
Ronald Scheman
Ira Shapiro
Jonathan WinerI'm probably underestimating the extent of corporate influence here, too, considering some others on the letter likely work at big corporations or corporate front groups, but aren't technically registered as lobbyists. For instance, the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council's Will Marshall is one of the signatories.
So there you have it - as populist Senators fight for the middle class and fight for workers abroad, a slew of former Clinton administration officials-turned-lobbyists is working directly with the Bush White House to try to ram a set of new NAFTAs through Congress.
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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
Boy do these motherfuckers in the Money Party never ever give the fuck up ! Where's the Justice League when you need them? Oh wait, the Justice League was bought by the Military Industrial Complex.
We're a corporate fascist oligarchy masquerading as a nation..!
Simple as that..Including Hillary Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry et al..
It gets worse, the "free" trade agreement is just one of a number of betrayals.
Dubai and Qatar are going to buy controlling interests in NASDAQ with barely a wimper from the Senate. Folks this ought to scare the living crap out of people. Here we have two kleptocratic authoritarian foreign states with rather shady ties to organized crime and terrorists controlling our stock market.
Here's the article from Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4c84f0ee-674b-11dc-9443-0000779fd2ac.html
Where's Dorgan, Brown and the others on this?
That said, its clear that our system of gov't is pretty much broken. Both parties are irrelevant. Its pay to play all the way now. Good bye Republic and hello Oligarchy.
The question is now what do we do to take back our country and gov't?
And I've caught flack for saying I will not vote for Hillary, if she wins the Democratic nomination.
This is exactly why. She's part of the Clinton machine that so betrayed us with NAFTA and is continuing to destroy our economy and the economy of our neighbors.
I'm writing in a candidate if she gets through the convention.
This is the same Will "NAFTA Shill" Marshall, founder of the Progressive Policy Institute otherwise known as that marching band of U.S. job killers who architected this corporate-welfare sponsored, have and have-not boilerplate manifesto?
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=108&subsecid=206&contentid=253926
Well David, You've called it again: Money Party vs. People Party and you're right: you are probably underestimating the extent of corporate influence here as some are not registered as corporate lobbyists-- despite the fact that, for example, tech companies like Google, who registered in-house lobbyists for the first time since establishing a Washington office in 2005, with Gore serving as an advisor to its board --- are in a position to influence more professional job losses.
Congress and corporate frat-boy America are hell-bent on creating an old-colonial style, feudal lord society and this begs the question waltc asks: "now what do we do to take back our country and gov't?"
And yes, TJ Colatrella: Pelosi and Kerry and the Clintons, too, are no friends in this war on the middle class. The aftermath of a vote for Hillary would be akin to purchasing four to eight years of tainted toothpaste from China and all the ecoli-seasoned spinach from Salinas we can eat.
This election cycle is meaningless unless the middle class recognizes that we no longer have the luxury of waxing on ideological and social imperatives that our MIA democratic republic once afforded. It must be about derailing this middle-class economic train-wreck that these motherfuckers promote as "no problem."
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