Obama Administration Pursuing Panama FTA

The Obama administration is currently considering plans to pass the Panama Free Trade Agreement (Panama FTA). The agreement–which is a NAFTA-style free trade agreement–was negotiated under the Bush administration but was not passed before he left office.

Presently, it is being pushed by a number of large banks–many of which received government bailout money. Obama’s trade representative has indicated that the administration is supportive of the agreement.

This is unfortunate as during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama expressed opposition to NAFTA, saying that he was open to having that treaty “renegotiated” to expand environmental and labor protections.

Public Citizen’s Citizens Trade Campaign came out against the agreement, stating:

On behalf of our more than twelve million combined members, we are writing to express our strong opposition to the Panama “Free Trade Agreement” (FTA). This pact reflects the unsuccessful ending point of the past administration’s trade policy and should not serve as the starting point for the new Congress and administration.

Responding to broad public demand for change, more than one hundred candidates from both parties ran on platforms of trade reform in 2008. The past trade model has led to massive American job loss, downward pressure on wages, the loss of nearly 300,000 family farms and massive trade imbalances that have contributed to our current economic crisis. It has given broad, expansive new rights to foreign corporations to challenge our environmental and public health standards, and flooded the United States with unsafe imported food and products. And, it has devastated developing nations where millions of family farmers have been forced off their land and poverty, despair and desperation-driven mass migrations have grown.

Like many of the proposed free trade agreements in the Americas, the Panama FTA uses language that is almost directly replicated from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). This language is problematic and raises doubts about the extent to which environmental and labor standards will be enforced, limits access to medicines, and grants preferences to foreign investors that allow them to sue governments in order to create a more business-friendly climate.

Panama’s Offshore Tax Haven Status also an Issue

Public Citizen has also released a report criticizing the prospect of a free trade agreement with Panama because the country makes it easy for U.S.-based corporations to setup subsidiaries in Panama in order to avoid paying taxes. In fact, it is so easy to do so that Public Citizen’s dispatched one of its interns to give it a try. Here’s what she found:

Passage of the Panama FTA would not reign in these practices. In fact, Public Citizen argues it would take away regulatory provisions aimed at restricting the use of offshore tax havens.

More on the Panama FTA can be found on Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch website.

Earth Democracy Author, Vandana Shiva, Speaks at WMU

Indian activist and author Vandana Shiva spoke at Western Michigan University last Thursday on the theme of sustainability, the topic of one of her most recent books,Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace.

Shiva began her talk by saying that we live in extremely important times, because the paradigm of fossil fuels consumption is killing us. She also used a comment from the founder of the Indian Satyagraha movement, Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi, when writing about the Western World, said that it “only promotes consumerism and comfort.” But, this model, according to Gandhi, is one that is self-destructive.

Corporate Globalization is a Dictatorship

Shiva then went on to talk about corporate globalization as a form of dictatorship. Corporate globalization uses force to achieve its goals as well as legal and institutional constructs such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). One example the author gave was how the global grain giant Cargill took control of the agricultural policies under the GATT/WTO. Shiva said they wrote the agreement and essentially represented the US at the international level to push through an agricultural policy that would allow them control of much of the world’s grain market.

Another way that Cargill has negatively impacted local agriculture is their dumping of soy oil on the market in India several years ago. Shiva said they were able to do this with huge subsidies, also part of the WTO agreements, which undercut the local market. People could not compete with the price of the soy oil, which was not nearly as good for human consumption as the dozens of other oils that Indians used. In response, women organized a Satyagraha campaign and made their own oil in defiance of the law.

Intellectual Property Rights and Seed Theft

The other main issue that Shiva addressed was the destructive consequences of intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights were essentially an expansion of traditional property rights that included seeds, humans, and any other form of life. India had a non-patent framework for products built into their constitution, but that changed with the WTO. What this has meant is that Monsanto controlls 95% of the global seed store. Seeds–which are the ultimate regeneration resource–have now been privatized.

This control of the global seed stock is being manifested in three ways. First, corporations are using genetic modification that necessitates the use of more pesticides, most of which are manufactured by the same corporations. Second, the control of global seed stock means that these corporations can control the price of seeds. So for example, last year Monsanto raised corn seed costs from $200 a bag to $300, which meant that they profited even more off world hunger. The third way they control seed stock was to legally insert into the WTO agreements the inability of farmers to save their own seeds, thus making them dependent on companies like Monsanto to buy their seeds.

One crop where this seed control has been devastating for Indian farmers is with cotton. The GMO cotton seeds that Indian farmers are now forced to buy also require large amounts of pesticides and farmer just end up going into debt. This crisis has resulted in a great deal of resistance, but it has also meant that many Indian farmers have taken their own lives. Shiva said that over 200,000 farmers have committed suicide as a protest of the seed control. One irony with this is that the highest areas of suicide are the same area of Indian where Gandhi’s campaign of homespun cotton began, a campaign that complimented a national boycott of British made clothes from cotton.

Climate Chaos or Earth Democracy

Shiva also addressed the issue of Climate Change, which she said is an inaccurate way of naming the problem. We should call it climate chaos, because with Global Warming, weather patterns have become unpredictable and destabilizing. This, the author/activist said was due to our addiction to fossil fuels.

“We are not phasing out fossil fuels, because they are now used in agribusiness. The toxic nature of fossil fuels agribusiness is killing the soil. 40% of greenhouse gases are produced because of the way we grow and distribute food.”

Shiva believes that the only way to move away from this addiction to fossil fuels, as it relates to agriculture, is a shift to localism, “The local level is where the change must happen, with food production and energy creation. Local food systems are very important and are even an antidote for wars,” Shiva said. “Why did the US go to war in Iraq? Oil. The same is true for Afghanistan and other parts of the world.” She then said that a shift to bio-fuels is not a sustainable solution either. “If all of the corn that is grow in the US right now is used for bio-fuel it would only provide 7% of the fuel needs. So, if the appetite of resource consumption continues then wars are inevitable.”

The author/activist said that the only viable transition away from this corporate structure is what she calls earth democracy:

“The current economic system is based on theft. We have to restore our economy. I started the seed saving group Navdanya as a way of defending life. Life is to be shared, not bought and sold. The earthworm does not eat up the soil that it lives in, it enriches it. We need to catch up to these other species. We need to look to them as teachers, these species, the soil, because that is where life gets renewed. The soil is an alternative to the collapsing economy, to the fossil fuel destruction, and it is an alternative to wars.”

Shiva concluded by saying that earth democracy is different than electoral democracy because in electoral democracy you expect someone else to do it for you, but with earth democracy we must make the changes ourselves.

Headlines: Obama Calls for NAFTA Changes; US Commander says US Troops Needed in Afghanistan for 3 More Years

Headlines from DemocracyNow.org, a daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, airing on over 650 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the US.

Obama Calls for Climate, Labor Safeguards in NAFTA

President Obama visited Canada on Thursday in his first trip abroad since taking office. Obama spent seven hours in the Canadian capital of Ottawa meeting Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Obama called for a new round of talks on adding labor and environmental provisions to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

President Obama: “With a NAFTA agreement that has labor provisions and environmental provisions as side agreements, it strikes me, if those side agreements mean anything, then they might as well be incorporated into the main body of the agreements so that they can be effectively enforced. And I think it is important, whether we’re talking about our relationships with Canada or our relationships with Mexico, that all countries concerned are thinking about how workers are being treated.”

Obama and Harper announced one initiative: a dialogue on developing clean energy. On the issue of Canada’s environmentally destructive extraction of oil from the Alberta tar sands, Obama was ambiguous. The President stressed the need to curb global warming but also noted Canada’s status as the top energy provider to the United States. On Afghanistan, Obama said he did not press Harper to reconsider Canada’s plan to withdraw its troops by 2011.

US Commander: 60,000 Troops Needed in Afghanistan for at Least 3 Years

Meanwhile, the top US commander in Afghanistan says at least 60,000 American troops will remain there for at least three to four years. General David McKiernan also says at least 10,000 additional US troops will be needed on top of the 17,000 ordered by President Obama this week.

Hundreds Protest NATO in Poland

In Poland, hundreds of people demonstrated outside a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Krakow Thursday. The US has used the meeting to call for greater involvement of other NATO forces in Afghanistan. The protesters denounced the US-led occupation.

Protester: “NATO really could have stopped its existence after the Cold War. It should not exist at all. Now it’s looking for new enemies, looking for expansion, and that leads to a rise in arms deals in the world. It’s a huge waste of human resources, and it kills people in Afghanistan.”

Kyrgyz President Orders Closure of US Base

The president of Kyrgyzstan has signed into law a measure closing a US military air base. The move came hours after the Kyrgyz Parliament overwhelmingly approved the closure and ordered US forces out within six months. Despite the call, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday the US is finalizing a new offer to ensure continued use. The Manas Air Base has played a central role in the US occupation of Afghanistan.

Report: Gitmo Prisoner to Be Returned to Britain

The British resident Binyam Mohamed will reportedly soon be freed from Guantanamo Bay. The Washington Post reports Mohamed will be flown to Britain next week. Mohamed’s case has drawn international controversy amidst torture allegations and a US-British row over the release of documents. Mohamed has claimed his confession to terrorism charges was given only after he had his penis sliced by a blade. The Bush administration refused to release key documents to Mohamed’s lawyers and warned British officials that trying to obtain them would jeopardize British “national security.”

Netanyahu to Become Israeli PM

In Israel and the Occupied Territories, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have locked up the Prime Minister’s office after winning support from another right-wing politician. On Thursday, Avigdor Lieberman said he would join a Netanyahu coalition government, giving Netanyahu a large advantage over Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, whose Kadima Party narrowly edged Likud in elections earlier this month. Meanwhile, Livini has ruled out joining Netanyahu’s coalition over his opposition to peace talks with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni: “Sixty-five members of parliament decided to say to the Israeli president that they prefer Bibi Netanyahu as their prime minister. So this is a coalition that I cannot be part of, since I know that I believe in a peace process. I believe that any peace process should be based on two states for two peoples.”

Although Livni disagrees with Netanyahu on holding peace talks, she’s promised to seek “maximum” Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank under any peace deal.

Kerry, Congress Members Tour Gaza

Meanwhile, three US lawmakers have visited the Gaza Strip in the most high-level American contact with the coastal strip in over eight years. On Thursday, Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, as well Congress members Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Brian Baird of Washington, toured Gaza on separate trips. The lawmakers refused to meet Hamas leaders but were shown some of the destruction from the three-week Israeli assault that ended last month. Kerry said US policy won’t change from insisting Hamas renounce violence, recognize Israel and respect previous agreements signed by the Palestinian Authority.

Sen. John Kerry: “None of us have any illusions that there is a place for terrorists at the table. People need to change their attitude. People need to change their approach. And we’re hopeful that this new opportunity will provide us with a chance to explore the possibilities of real peace.”

The US position has been criticized because it refuses to demand the same conditions on Israel. The Israeli government has refused to renounce violence, recognize previous agreements, and recognize a Palestinian state, which it continues to prevent through settlement construction in the West Bank and the ongoing siege of Gaza. After their tour, Congress members Ellison and Baird expressed sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza. In a statement, Baird called the human suffering in Gaza “shocking and troubling beyond words.” Ellison said, “People, innocent children, women and non-combatants, are going without water, food and sanitation, while the things they so desperately need are sitting in trucks at the border, being denied permission to go in.”

Aid Convoy Heads to Gaza from Europe

A 100-vehicle, mile-long aid convoy is making its way through Europe with a stated final destination of the Gaza Strip. The group “Viva Palestina” set off from London on Saturday. Organizers plan to gather more participants as the convoy passes through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, where they hope to cross the Rafah border into Gaza. The vehicles include a fire engine and ambulances. They’re carrying goods including clothes, blankets and children’s toys.

Report: Covert Israeli Program Targets Iran Nuclear Officials

The Telegraph of London has revealed new details on covert Israeli operations inside Iran. Intelligence sources say Israel has established a “decapitation” program to assassinate Iranian officials involved in nuclear activities. Israel has been linked to the deaths of several figures in Iran’s nuclear program, including a scientist who died under mysterious circumstances in 2007.

Texas Financier Served with Fraud Papers

Here in the United States, federal agents have served civil papers to the Texas billionaire Robert Allen Stanford in the case accusing him of an $8 billion fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission says Robert Allen Stanford used his Antigua-based bank to defraud investors by selling them phony certificates of deposit. Stanford wasn’t taken into custody, because he hasn’t been charged criminally. Like the Bernie Madoff fraud scandal, Stanford’s case has again raised questions about the SEC’s ability to regulate the securities industry. Critics say the SEC missed a series of warnings about Stanford, as they did with Madoff.

California Senate Passes Education Cuts, Tax Hike

In California, the state Senate has approved a contentious $42 billion budget bill. The measure cuts $15 billion in education spending and imposes a $12 billion tax hike.

NYU Student Protest Grows Despite Expulsion Threats

Here in New York, a group of several dozen students continue to occupy a school cafeteria at New York University. The group Take Back NYU has submitted demands including the establishment of a socially responsible investment committee, a union for graduate student teachers, a tuition freeze, a full disclosure of the school’s annual budget, and support for Palestinian students in the Gaza Strip. The students say they’ll continue their occupation despite threats of expulsion. Overnight, hundreds of supporters gathered in the streets outside the cafeteria to cheer the protest. A group of new protesters reportedly joined the sit-in after breaking through a police barricade.

Post Offers Limited Apology as Cartoon Protests Continue

Meanwhile, protests are continuing today outside the offices of the New York Post following the publication of a cartoon that critics say depicts President Obama as a chimpanzee. Amidst boycott calls from a number of civil rights activists and organizations, the Post issued an apology of sorts last night. It said in part, “To those who were offended by the image, we apologize. However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past–and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback. To them, no apology is due.”

Peace Activist Peter DeMott Dies at 62

And the longtime peace activist Peter DeMott has died at the age of sixty-two. Shortly before the US invasion of Iraq, DeMott and three other peace activists poured their own blood on the posters, flags and walls of a military recruiting station outside of Ithaca, New York. The activists became known as the St. Patrick’s Day Four. Demott served four months in federal prison for the action.

He became a peace activist after fighting with the Marines in Vietnam.

Peter DeMott: “I arrived in Vietnam on 8th of December of 1968 and was there, for about two more weeks–I left on the 30th of November of ’69, so there for about one week shy of a year. And so, I participated in that war, and I know firsthand that war only begets more war, that war is organized mass murder and that it doesn’t really solve anything. It just makes the likelihood of enduring peace coming about all the more difficult. And then, so I–in the buildup to the war in Iraq, you know, my personal experience of having been in the Vietnam was very motivational for me in that it inspired me and kind of morally compelled me to speak out in a nonviolent way to say, ‘No, this war must not happen, and I’m willing to put my body in the way of the war and its actualization in any nonviolent way that I can.”

Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants

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It has been a few years since Rep. Sensenbrenner proposed draconian legislation known as HR 4437. His proposed legislation, which would have made being undocumented in the US a felony, was a major catalyst for mobilizing a new wave of immigrant justice activists in 2005-2006.

However, immigration rights and reform was a non-issue during the 2008 presidential election. Candidates steered clear of taking a position on what many saw as a “controversial” issue. Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants, is an excellent book that reminds us of the importance of immigration as a justice issue.

Veteran writer and photo journalist David Bacon has spent years observing and writing about the harsh realities that face people who are part of the migrant stream coming from Central America and Mexico into the United States. Bacon combines the best of analysis with how US immigration policy impacts individuals and their families.

Illegal People is not so much a methodical look at how globalization creates migrants, rather it is a collection of essays and stories about people who have come from countries like Guatemala and Mexico after economic hardship as a result of trade policies such as NAFTA and CAFTA.

Bacon weaves throughout the book examples from US history of migrants who have been victims of racist immigration policy to those who have organized against this repression. The author draws the links between how the US treated Chinese immigrants in the later part of the 19th century to how US policy treats Mexicans today. The book also provides excellent examples of how migrants have organized themselves in response to immigration policy. Bacon provides a window into the campaigns by Chicano and Filipino activists in the 1960 that led to the creation of the United Farm Workers and the organizing behind the current immigrant rights movement.

Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants is not only a great resource for understanding what drives much of the immigration to the US, it provides a framework for responding to the racist and xenophobic movements that want to build a wall along the US-Mexican border.

David Bacon, Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants, (Beacon Press, 2008).

Report says CAFTA has Failed to Deliver

Earlier this month, the Stop CAFTA Coalition released a report on the effects of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and called for the trade agreement to be suspended by president elect Barack Obama.

The report argues that CAFTA has failed on several fronts and that its failure should be seen as a reason to reject the pending Colombia Free Trade Agreement and focus instead on agreements that focus on human rights, and economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

The report argues that the problems that come with CAFTA–often dismissed by critics as “growing pains” that will even out over time–are problems inherent to the flawed economic theories that shaped the agreement. As with many neoliberal trade agreements, jobs gained have largely been low paying–and often dangerous–jobs at factories owned by multi-national corporations. Similarly, a rise in exports reported by some CAFTA countries has largely benefited multinationals. Intellectual property rights included within CAFTA have stopped local corporations from being able to sell generic medicine to impoverished citizens who cannot afford brand-name drugs. The agreement has also paved the way for destructive environmental projects including open-pit mines and hydroelectric dams. Moreover, CAFTA’s rules make it harder for citizens to challenge these projects.

The report also briefly looks at how the United States has been impacted by CAFTA. The agreement’s passage was hotly debated in the legislature and many unions and NGOs opposed CAFTA. Some of them opposed the agreement on the grounds that it would negatively affect the agricultural and industrial sectors of the US economy. The report concludes that there has been relatively little effect on those sectors. However, it cautions that any gains for the US under CAFTA favor large corporations over small ones, and agri-business over small farms.

Overall, the report concludes that:

“The promises of DR-CAFTA have not been realized in the first three years of its implementation. If DR-CAFTA is not seriously renegotiated, it will continue to harm local economies and people, promote migration, and greatly increase the economic inequalities that persist throughout the region. Without changes to the current economic model and vast improvements to local infrastructure, employment opportunities will continue to be scarce, and the poor will continue to become poorer as the rich continue to become richer.”

The report offers several ideas for alternatives to the neoliberal CAFTA, including ALBA, a cooperative trade agreement focusing on development and mutually beneficial policies, and the Association Agreement with the European Union. In addition, it contains a “Pledge for Trade Justice” that offers elements that must be present to have an agreement based on justice and equality. These include increased transparency, stronger core environmental and labor standards in the body of trade agreements, provisions allowing for locally focused sustainable development, and more.

CAFTA was supported by West Michigan Representative Vern Ehlers who has a history of supporting neoliberal trade agreements including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow both voted against CAFTA.

The Stop CAFTA coalition has released two previous reports on the effects of CAFTA in 2006 and 2007.

Obama Chief of Staff Emanuel Key in Passage of NAFTA

Obama’s first appointment–Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel–has been widely reported in the corporate and progressive media. In most of the coverage, the focus has been on Rahm’s political style and the hard line antics that earned him the nickname “Rahmbo.”

In this vein, an Associated Press article that ran in The Grand Rapids Press on Friday–“Obama’s First Pick: ‘Rahmbo’“–is representative of much of the coverage. The article focuses almost exclusively on Emanuel’s personality and his political style. For example, it includes a story about how Emanuel once mailed a Democratic pollster a dead fish to express his disapproval. However, there was little exploration of his politics.

Emanuel is a centrist democrat who worked in the Clinton White House before leaving for the private sector (where he earned millions as an investment banker) and then joining Congress. He supported the congressional resolution that authorized the use of military force against Iraq, is a strong supporter of Israel, is aligned with the Democratic Leadership Council, and has what can best be described as a hawkish–or imperialist–view of US foreign policy.

But, it is Emanuel’s role in securing the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that seems most at odds with Obama’s campaign and the economic debate over NAFTA during the 2008 Democratic Party primary.

Emanuel and the Passage of NAFTA

The passage of NAFTA under President Bill Clinton was one of Clinton’s most controversial actions. It pitted environmentalists, organized labor, and activists against the Democratic Party’s corporate backers and ushered in a debate that still rages to this day. Many of these constituencies saw the passage of NAFTA as a betrayal and point to job losses, weakened environmental standards, and other problems as proof of their critique.

In facing down stiff opposition to the trade agreement from the Democratic Party’s base and grassroots groups, Clinton turned to Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel cut his teeth as a fundraiser during Clinton’s 1991 presidential campaign. Following the campaign, Emanuel become one of Clinton’s key operatives in the fight to pass NAFTA. Emanuel worked closely with the so-called “NAFTA czar”–William Daley, the son of late Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley (and a friend of Obama’s who was recently appointed to his transition team)–in mustering enough votes for the trade agreement. In The Selling of ‘Free Trade,’ Emanuel is remembered for his “aggressive” work on NAFTA and being a critical part of the administration’s NAFTA working group. Emanuel lobbied for votes, helped direct the media strategy (including one targeted leak to undercut news of an anti-NAFTA politician’s election in Canada), and participated in the administration’s campaign to get the agreement passed–over public opposition–no matter what the cost. An October 26,1993 article in The Hotline said that the White House’s NAFTA effort “came to life” under Emanuel, who served as its “operational director.”

Emaneul has reflected positively on the administration’s passage of NAFTA:

“You know, politics is about mending and tacking and so on, and setting your priorities. We were a very determined administration. We made a lot of compromises to get NAFTA passed and a lot of deals to get NAFTA passed.”

Emanuel’s Support for NAFTA and Obama’s Position: Not that Strange After All?

In his statement announcing Rahm Emanuel’s appointment, Obama makes no mention of Emanuel’s support of NAFTA–even when he highlights his work during the Clinton administration. Instead, Obama says:

“During his seven years in the Clinton White House, Rahm was the point man on some of the most difficult issues, from the passage of landmark anti-crime legislation to the expansion of health care coverage for children.”

Most press coverage of Emanuel’s appointment has mentioned that he played a key role in the passage of NAFTA, but none has explored how this may be at odds with Obama’s campaign.

During the primaries, Obama aggressively criticized NAFTA. However, following the end of the primary, Obama began to tone down his rhetoric and appeared to retreat on his NAFTA rhetoric. In an interview with Fortune magazine, Obama stated that much of the anti-NAFTA rhetoric was “overheated and amplified” and that he is a supporter of free trade and is looking for ways to make free trade agreements work for all.

Emanuel now has issued mild criticisms of NAFTA and has said that it would be negotiated differently now, but that the NAFTA issue is a distraction from larger problems with the economy. These mild criticisms are a lot like what Obama has said and are in many ways similar to Obama’s position: it isn’t the logic of free trade agreements and neoliberalism that is wrong, it’s how they are done. For his part, Rahm earlier this year urged the passage of several pending neoliberal trade agreements.

Rahm and NAFTA: Does it even Matter?

There is certainly a progressive case to be made against Rahm and a such critique certainly has merit. On issues from NAFTA to the Iraq War, Rahm’s position has been disappointing or at odds with what many progressives believe.

However, many progressives are defending Rahm as being necessary to navigate the difficult inter-workings of Washington politics. They argue that Rahm will not set policy priorities, but simply reflect Obama’s goals and direct his staff. Still, the Chief of Staff is responsible for determining the president’s schedule and controlling access to him–which gives Emanuel a key role in determining the voices Obama will hear.

At the same time, Emanuel is representative of some of the worst of Clinton’s politics and the rightward shift of the Democratic Party over the past two decades. Emanuel’s appointment–coupled with the appointment of a slew of former Clinton administration officials to Obama’s transition team–serve as important reminder that progressives need to be on their toes if they want to be represented in the Obama administration.

IGE Talks: Globalization

Here is the latest “IGE Talks,” a monthly cable access show hosted by the Institute for Global Education (IGE) and aired on Grand Rapids’ public access television. As part of our ongoing efforts to support independent and do-it-yourself media here in West Michigan, we will be posting these shows each month. In this episode, “IGE Talks” focuses on “Globalization:”

The topic for the next show is “weed and seed.” It will be taped on July 3 at 7:00pm at the IGE office. IGE is located at 1118 Wealthy Street SE. The public is welcome to participate in the discussion.

Ehlers Supported Trade Agreement Contributing to Sweatshops in Central America

The National Labor Committee–an organization that fights to defend the human rights of workers in the global economy–has released a new study finding evidence that the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has facilitated the development of sweatshops in Central America. In 2005, West Michigan Representative Vern Ehlers supported CAFTA.

The National Labor Committee’s most recent investigation has found that Salvadoran women sewing $165 jackets for The North Face and $54 shirts for Eddie Bauer cannot afford to pay for basic necessities on the wages paid at the Korean owned Youngone S.A. de C.V. factory. There, workers report being paid only 94 cents for each $165 North Face jacket that they sew while enduring sexual harassment, forced overtime, and verbal abuse. An effort to form a union failed when the organizers were all illegally fired.

While these conditions are ostensibly illegal under CAFTA, the limited enforcement mechanisms have allowed the conditions to persist. The National Labor Committee has previously documented other instances in which CAFTA has contributed to the development of sweatshops in the Americas.

La Via Campesina: Globalization and the Power of Peasants

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When people think of popular protests in the past decade what comes to mind for many people are the WTO action in Seattle, the FTAA actions in Quebec City and Miami, or the protests in places like Genoa, Cancun, and at the annual G-8 Summits. These kinds of large-scale demonstrations take a great deal of planning and organizing by individual and organizations that we often don’t hear about. One of those groups is La Via Campesina.

La Via Campesina (Spanish for The Way of Those Who Work the Land) is an organization that was founded in 1993 and became known to the world at its first conference in Belgium. Annette Aurelie Desmarais, a Canadian activist, does a great job of presenting the history and organizational politics of this international movement in her book La Via Campesina. The subtitle, Globalization and the Power of Peasants, acts as a spring board for providing readers with the context that gave birth to this movement of those who work the land–the small farmers and peasants of the world.

La Via Campesina devotes several chapters to analyzing the historical shift in food production from small or subsistence farmers to agribusiness. One statistic from the book that was quite instructive in this shift is “In 1920 the US had 6.5 million farmers; by 2002 the number had fallen to 2.13 million.” The author goes on to say that this means there are “more prisoners in the US than there are farmers.” This trend of fewer and fewer small farmers is the same all around the globe, where more of the rural population has migrated to urban areas and less people are directly involved in food production. This globalization of agriculture, what was once called the Green Revolution, is what the author calls a “war on subsistence.” The factors that have caused this shift in food production have been increased reliance on machinery, forcing neo-liberal markets on developing countries, bio-technology and shifting production away from meeting the needs of local populations to exports.

The author goes on to discuss how the policies of the WTO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and even conferences like the United Nations Food Summit have never included the voices of small/subsistence farmers or campesinos – those who worked the land. This was not surprising to those who began to organize as campesinos since they were the ones who were most affected by the policies of corporate global agriculture.

La Via Campesina traces its origins to a series of discussions that took place in Nicaragua in 1992 with organizations from Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, Canada, and the United States at the second congress of the Union Nacional de Agricultures y Ganaderos. The author states that “The Via Campesina emerged in explicit rejection of the neo-liberal agricultural policies and as a direct response to the GATT negotiations’ exclusion of the concerns, needs, and interests of people who actually work the land and produce the world’s food.” Out of this 1992 meeting came three broad principals that the new organization agreed upon:

* The right of small farmers to a living in the countryside; this implies the full right of farmers to their own autonomous organizations and the recognition of their social importance in the definition and implementation of development in general, and rural development in particular.

* The right to a diversified agriculture which guarantees, as a matter of priority, a supply of healthy, high quality food for all peoples in the world, based on a profound respect for the environment, for a balanced society and for effective access to the land.

* The right of every country to define its own agricultural policy according to the nation’s interest and in concertacion with the peasant and indigenous organizations, guaranteeing their real participation.

Once the organization created and agreed to shared principles, they evolved into a dynamic and engaging organization. La Via Campesina has made their presence known and has participated in the mass demonstrations that I mentioned earlier, but particularly took a leadership role at the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Cancun, Mexico. Their organizing in many ways disrupted and shut down the proceedings that resulted in the conference being a failure. According to La Via Campesina:

“The collapse of the WTO is a result of a profound crisis within the neo-liberal model. It is urgent that we continue to strengthen our movements, our alternative proposals. Creating an open, transparent and constructive dialogue among ourselves is all the more necessary to advance in our strategies of struggle.”

During the Cancun action, one Korean farmer committed suicide as a protest against these very policies that La Via Campesina has organized against. In memory of the Korean farmer’s death, Lee Kyung Hae, April 17 is now the International Day of Peasant Struggle.

The last major theme addressed in La Via Campesina is how the organization functions and what challenges it faces in becoming a real voice for change. Like many that have organized around global issues, La Via Campesina has also struggled with being more inclusive of both indigenous voices and women’s participation. According to the author, these issues were addressed early on in the organization’s formation, so they have made progress in that arena, but they have also recognized the need for constant discussion and self-evaluation to foster a fully participatory climate.

La Via Campesina is an important book for those interested not only in understanding how the small farmer/peasant communities around the world have responded to neo-liberal policies, but also for those seeking a good analysis of community-based organizing and the desire of people all around the world to value the land, food production, and participatory democracy.

Annette Aurelie Desmarais, La Via Campesina: Globalization and the Power of Peasants, (Pluto Press, 2007).

Ehlers Speaks at Event Promoting Colombia Free Trade Agreement

Earlier this week, Grand Rapids area congressional Representative Vern Ehlers spoke at event sponsored by the Grand Rapids and US Chamber of Commerce. The event–part of the national Chamber’s “TradeRoots” series–promoted trade agreements as a means of helping Michigan businesses succeed. Additionally, according to a media report, the event promoted the passage of the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (Colombia FTA), which the Chamber’s representative said would help businesses in the United States. The same article said, “Government and business representatives also discussed how the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement will remove barriers to U.S. service providers doing business in the country; provide a secure, predictable legal framework for U.S. investors; and effectively enforce labor and environmental laws.” Unfortunately, there is nothing available online about what Ehlers said specifically at the event. In the past, Ehlers has supported many similar trade agreements.

The Colombia Free Trade Agreement has been criticized by Public Citizen for being based on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and thereby replicating its flaws. Moreover, the Colombia FTA has been criticized for ignoring anti-union violence in Colombia. The AFL-CIO, one of the largest unions in the country, is opposed to the Colombia FTA and has committed to mobilizing its members against it.