"Check It Out" for Thursday, February 19th
The inimitable Jim Hightower has an article at AlterNet that poses the question: Obama won on a populist surge---so where's the populist policy?
"I don't mind losing when we lose, but I hate losing when we win.
"...the president's treasury chief, Timothy Geithner, rolled out the administration's plan to add more than a trillion dollars to the ongoing Wall Street bailout, and -- Holy William Jennings Bryan -- Obama's populist bark had been reduced to a puppy whimper! It seems that Geithner and Obama's top economic advisor, Lawrence Summers -- both of whom have long been cozy with the very same greed-headed bankers who caused the financial mess we're in -- had been cooing into the president's ears about the "danger" of "harshly" punishing executives and "spooking" private investors.
"Thanks to them, even though populist politics won, populist policy lost. Gone from Obama's proposal is the idea that top managers of the failed banks -- the executives who made the foolhardy investments that brought the system down -- should be ousted (if not tarred and feathered). Instead, our trillion-plus bucks are to be put right into those same hands! If ignorance is bliss, Geithner and Summers must be ecstatic."
In light of Obama's trip to Canada, Jonathan Tasini at Working Life has a commentary about NAFTA
"I think he [Obama] is somewhat conflicted. I think the community organizer in him comes out when he speaks to union audiences or listens to the policy arguments that make a persuasive case about the damage of so-called "free trade". He understands oppression and corporate power. But, I think he also has a deeply ingrained faith--misguided, I would add--in marketing phrases like "free trade" and "free market". I think those faiths have been ingrained in him probably going back, in part, to his Harvard education, an institution where the belief in these marketing phrases is almost a religion.
"The issue of so-called "free trade" is precisely an area where we need to have a vigorous, consistent, unyielding "loyal opposition" to the Administration. We can't depend on the president to change the debate on trade because he is a captive of a system that can only see trade in the prism of the debate between two false marketing phrases: "protectionism" versus "free trade".
"We have to push hard, respectfully and loudly, with a simple point: you cannot succeed--the world cannot change--if we don't remove the so-called "free trade" boot that is pressing down on the necks of millions of Americans and workers everywhere."
And David Sirota comments at Campaign for America's Future that not only do Americans want NAFTA reform, so do Canadians:
"So, while I'm sure we're going to hear lots of talk today about how average Canadians are going to unleash their frightening fury on America if we push to renegotiate NAFTA and strengthen our Buy America laws, the facts show that's a manufactured and fantastical storyline ginned up by a drama-seeking media and by free-trade fundamentalists - the latter of which aims to mask their ideology and corporate fealty in the argot of progressive international relations."
From Public Record: It's cheaper for BP to pollute as long as possible and then pay fines and update equipment.
"BP Products North America Inc. agreed Thursday to spend more than $161 million on pollution controls, enhanced maintenance and monitoring, and improved internal management practices to resolve Clean Air Act violations at its Texas City, Texas, refinery, the Justice Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said.
"The company will also pay a $12 million civil penalty and spend $6 million on a supplemental project to reduce air pollution in Texas City."
Harry Browne at Counterpunch writes about the autopsy of the Celtic Tiger, Ireland's economy.
"The unemployment rolls in the Republic of Ireland are growing by more than 30,000 per month. It might not sound like a lot, but on a straight per-capita comparison, in a state of some four million people, that’s more than three times worse than what’s been afflicting the US.
"This little country is going to hell in a turbo-charged handbasket...
"The rise and fall of the Irish economy have of course had more solid material and ideological causes, little to do with “who we are as a nation”. When I moved to Dublin in 1985 it was still common to hear speculation as to whether this were a First or Third World country. The “open economy” strategy that was launched in the 1960s only bore serious fruit a quarter-century later, when multinational growth industries such as tech and pharmaceuticals saw Ireland as a useful offshore haven, with low taxes, state grants, low rates of unionisation and a reasonably well educated, English-speaking workforce. Often companies cooked the international books to locate their profits here."
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