Last April at the presidential Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, our very own George W. Bush attempted to articulate his belief that all of the world's people should be grateful that he and other leaders are creating ever more supra-national trade arrangements like NAFTA and the WTO: "It's important for folks to understand that when there's more trade, there's more commerce," he explained.
Okay. Has everyone got that? More trade means more commerce. Or is it vice versa? Whatever. This is what passes for intellectual depth in the shallows of BushWorld. Trade = good. Commerce = good. More = very good.
But trade at what cost, and commerce that profits whom? W. doesn't address such complexities. His strong suit is not articulation, or comprehension for that matter. In Quebec, however, he had to say something, because tens of thousands of protesters were in the streets raising patriotic hell about the very corporate hegemony that he'd flitted in to advance.
It was George's first chance as POTUS to strut on the international stage, but the noisy protesters had grabbed the limelight, forcing him and his fellow big shots to retreat into a small perimeter surrounded by six miles of razor wire and 6,000 armed police.
Bush was befuddled—why were the protesters there, why were they shouting, why would they hurl their bodies at a system that has showered such wealth on him and everyone he knows? Don't they get it?, he wondered. If only these scraggly kids and the other boisterous protesters could know that the global corporate agenda is everyone's agenda. Don't fight it; let it embrace you. You could almost hear W.'s brain whirr as it strained to make the connection. Trade . . . commerce . . . more. What else could they want?
How about no more fairy tales, flim flam, and outright fraud being perpetrated on We the People by Bush and other apologists for a globalized scheme of trickle-down economics that has done nothing but profit the few at the expense of the many?
Do George and his corporate buddies think we've got sucker wrappers around our heads? The "scraggly kids" are not alone. For years, roughly three-fourths of the American people have been telling anyone who'll ask them that they think NAFTA, the WTO, and other trade schemes are scams that have knocked down workers, added to pollution, exploited poor people worldwide, and subverted our democratic right to be a self-governing people.
The reason they think this is because they have firsthand knowledge of it. Not a week goes by without another community learning that some MegaGiant Inc. plans to abandon yet another American city, moving our manufacturing base, high-tech engineering, customer-service operations, food production, and every other industry to some low-wage free-trade zone where they can pay pennies to powerless laborers and pollute at will.
Bush might as well try pushing a string across his desk as try pushing people to applaud such an agenda of globaloney. To know the truth about these trade deals, he needn't stoop to listening to union leaders, environmentalists, citizen activists, students, or others he treats as his enemies. ... [ read more ]
What the hell's happening here? Why is my bank in the tank? And my house and job? And my retirement money? Even my state's teetering on the brink of broke! Who did this to us? Fair questions, but we're not getting honest answers. 
