The Evening Blues - 11-9-21
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features rhythm & blues musician Goree Carter. Enjoy!
Goree Carter - Rock Awhile
“To be robbed and betrayed by a fiendish underground conspiracy, or by the earthly agents of Satan, is at least a romantic sort of plight - it suggests at least a grand Hollywood-ready confrontation between good and evil - but to be coldly ripped off over and over again by a bunch of bloodless, second-rate schmoes, schmoes you chose, you elected, is not something anyone will take much pleasure in bragging about.”
-- Matt Taibbi
News and Opinion
All US Elections Are Fraudulent; Shut Up About Nicaragua
Western media are blaring headlines today about a rigged election, not in the United States or any of the other powerful nations allied with it whose elections are consistently fraudulent from top to bottom, but in the small Central American nation of Nicaragua.
A Google search brings up only news stories disparaging the Nicaragua election and its results. As flagged on Twitter by Left I on the News, CNN’s coverage of President Daniel Ortega’s victory featured a chyron with scare quotes around both the words “election” and “wins”, and a newscaster flatly stating “Ortega got 75% of the vote, results that we know are illegitimate.”
New York Times correspondent Natalie Kitroeff reported that Ortega has been “arresting all credible challengers; shutting down opposition parties; banning large campaign events; closing voting stations en masse” and that “there were no billboards or campaign posters” for the opposition, all claims that have been squarely refuted by observers reporting on the scene like Wyatt Reed, Ben Norton, Margaret Kimberly, Ahmed Kaballo, Caleb Maupin and others.
This mass media concern trolling about Nicaragua’s elections would not be so outrageously absurd were the elections of the US and its allies anywhere remotely close to free from fraud and manipulation.
There’s a common misconception that nothing ever changes in the US political status quo because an ideological tug-of-war between two equal and opposing factions keeps things in a state of stasis where it’s impossible to advance changes which would benefit ordinary Americans. In reality those two “factions” are in complete alignment in all but the most superficial ways, the electoral contests between them are dominated by a donor class with a vested interest in protecting the status quo, the candidates who compete in them are pre-selected by a corrupt and meticulously vetted primary process to ensure the public only ever gets to cast votes for those who will preserve oligarchy and empire, and third parties are constitutionally prevented from ever becoming politically viable.
All US elections for positions of real power are fraudulent. None of them ever permit real opposition. It’s a one-party system controlled by plutocratic and military institutions fraudulently disguised as democracy, and yet people who call themselves “journalists” have the temerity to criticize the integrity of Latin American elections without ever criticizing their own.
Just once it would be great to hear widespread discussion of US election rigging in the same alarmed tone we hear mass media concern trolls talking about nations like Nicaragua, Bolivia or Venezuela. “Very alarming how third parties are forbidden from participation in the US presidential debate.” “Concerned about the way any real opposition to the US power structure is banned from mainstream media.”
Whenever I raise this point I get people saying “Well the US doesn’t imprison its political opposition leaders like other tyrannical countries!”
That’s only because the US doesn’t have any political opposition leaders. There are no politicians in America with any political purchase who oppose the ruling power structure in any meaningful way. All true opposition has been quashed; all you ever get is two virtually identical lackeys of the oligarchic empire bickering over irrelevant narrative fluff like whether or not Critical Race Theory is being taught in schools.
There is no real opposition to the US power structure in electoral politics; it has been too aggressively stomped out for generation after generation since the days when it was openly incarcerating political dissidents like Eugene Debs for “sedition”. And anyone who comes anywhere close to threatening that power structure outside electoral politics is indeed imprisoned, as we are seeing right now in cases like Julian Assange.
There is no valid reason to believe the official imperial narratives about Nicaragua or any other empire-targeted nation, both because the US is virtually always far more guilty of whatever it’s accusing its enemies of doing and because its political/media establishment lies constantly. If you believe the mainstream narrative about any US-targeted nation you will wind up on the wrong side of debates about that nation, because the US empire is the single most corrupt and murderous institution on earth and its power is held in place by lies and propaganda.
The sooner you have your “Are we the baddies?” moment, the faster you get to truth.
The US empire—by which I also mean the client states around the world who support its agendas of planetary domination—has no business criticizing governments which are far less powerful, far less destructive, and far less corrupt. Elections throughout this US-centralized power structure are consistently rigged in myriad ways to ensure the survival of the political status quo upon which it is built, and if the mainstream news media existed for the purpose of practicing journalism this is something we would all be acutely aware of.
Until you are living in a nation with real political opposition and real elections, maybe shut the fuck up about places like Nicaragua.
US govt-backed social media companies meddle in Nicaragua's elections
There are fnords in this US News piece:
Nicaragua's Ortega Secures Another Term, U.S. Threatens Action
Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega easily locked in a fourth consecutive term after suppressing political rivals, results showed on Monday, leading Washington to warn it would press for a "return to democracy" and free and fair elections.
Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council said that with roughly half the ballots counted, a preliminary tally gave Ortega's Sandinista alliance about 75% of votes.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States will work with other democratic governments and was ready to use a range of tools, including possible sanctions, visa restrictions and coordinated actions against those it said were complicit in supporting the Nicaragua government's "undemocratic acts."
However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov backed Ortega, saying U.S. calls for countries not to recognize the outcome were "unacceptable." ...
The Supreme Electoral Council said turnout was 65%.
Provocative maneuvering | Russia is concerned with US actions
Iran Wants U.S. Assurances It Will Never Abandon Nuclear Deal if Revived
Iran said on Monday that the United States should provide guarantees that it will not abandon Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers again, if talks to revive the agreement succeed.
Indirect talks between Iran and the United States, which stalled in June after the election of hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, are set to resume on Nov. 29 in Vienna to find ways to reinstate the 2015 accord. ...
That ongoing stance is likely to cause concern in the United States and with its European allies - France, Britain and Germany - who deem it unrealistic and want to resume June's talks where they left off without new demands.
One Western diplomat said if Tehran was genuinely continuing to demand a guarantee and full lifting of sanctions then it meant Iran was not serious about talks.
Legal woes mount for NSO after court rules WhatsApp lawsuit can proceed
NSO Group’s legal problems have deepened after a US appeals court thoroughly rejected the Israeli spyware company’s claim that it ought to be protected under sovereign immunity laws, in a high-profile case involving WhatsApp.
The decision on Monday by the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit means that WhatsApp can proceed with its lawsuit against NSO over allegations that its spyware was used to hack 1,400 users of the app. It also means that the Israeli company will probably have to respond to discovery requirements as the case moves forward.
That could lead to new disclosures about who NSO’s government clients are, how its technology works, and the process that is used to deploy its signature spyware, called Pegasus, attacks against mobile phone users. ...
WhatsApp accused NSO of sending malware to 1,400 of its users over WhatsApp’s servers in 2019. The company has said that about 100 of the individuals who were targeted were members of civil society, including journalists and activists.
In a recent interview with the Guardian, WhatsApp’s chief executive, Will Cathcart, said senior government officials around the world – including individuals in high national security positions who are “allies of the US” – were also targeted in the attack.
Pharma Front Group Has Spent $1.2 Million Backing Sinema
A dark money group funded by drugmakers is blanketing the Arizona airwaves to build up support for Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who just helped gut Democrats’ drug pricing plan.
Center Forward, which has long been bankrolled by the powerful drug lobby Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), has spent roughly $1.2 million to promote Sinema in Arizona since September, according to data from AdImpact.
The group’s ad campaign initially started shortly before Politico reported that Sinema had informed the Biden White House that she opposed the party’s plan to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
With Sinema’s poll numbers lagging in the wake of her efforts to stall and weaken President Joe Biden’s social spending reconciliation package — including the drug pricing provision — Center Forward recently put hundreds of thousands of dollars into a new round of TV ads boosting Sinema.
Saagar Enjeti: US Faces Heating Bill 'ARMAGEDDON' As Biden Does NOTHING
Glenn Greenwald: Steele Dossier COLLAPSES To Media SILENCE
Lawyer John Eastman and Michael Flynn among six subpoenaed by Capitol attack panel
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack has issued subpoenas to six of Donald Trump’s associates involved in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election from a “command center” at the Willard Hotel in Washington DC. The subpoenas demanding documents and testimony open a new line of inquiry into the coordinated strategy by the White House and the Trump campaign to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, and whether it was connected to the 6 January insurrection.
House investigators on Monday targeted six Trump officials connected to the Willard: the legal scholar John Eastman, Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien, Trump’s adviser Jason Miller, the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump’s campaign aide Angela McCallum, and the former New York police department commissioner Bernard Kerik. The select committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement that the panel was pursuing the Trump officials in order to uncover “every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress”. ...
House investigators are taking a special interest in Eastman after it emerged that he outlined scenarios for overturning the election in a memo for a 4 January White House meeting that included Trump, the former vice-president Mike Pence and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows. At the meeting, according to a source close to Trump, Eastman ran through the memo that detailed how Pence might refuse to certify electoral slates for Biden on 6 January and thereby unilaterally hand Trump a second term. ...
Trump was not successful in co-opting Pence and Congress certified Biden as president. But House investigators are examining whether the memo was part of a broader conspiracy connected to the Capitol attack – and whether Trump had advance knowledge of the insurrection.
TWO THIRDS Of Americans Says Biden SHOULD NOT Run Again
Analysis Reveals Massive Global Gap Between Declared and Actual Emissions
A major new investigation from the Washington Post has found "a giant gap" between the greenhouse gas emissions nations are reporting to the United Nations and what their planet-heating emissions actually are.
Published Sunday, the investigation is being heralded as "a must-read story" based on "amazing" and "incredibly helpful" reporting.
The Post team assessed 196 countries' emissions data for 2019, plugging in information for the 45 countries that submitted reports to the U.N. that year and making projections for the others.
Comparing that data with independent global emissions measurements, the Post found there was at least 8.4 billion tons and as much as 13.3 billion tons in underreported emissions. Carbon dioxide made up the majority of the gap, with methane following. Nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases, sometimes known as f-gases, accounted for smaller portions of the gap.
Pointing to the ongoing COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, the reporting notes that "the numbers they are using to help guide the world’s effort to curb greenhouse gases represent a flawed road map" and that the challenge of reigning in emissions "is even larger than world leaders have acknowledged."
Flaws in the emissions reporting methods have been previously acknowledged, the Post noted, attributing the gap to "questionably drawn rules, incomplete reporting in some countries, and apparently willful mistakes in others—and the fact that in some cases, humanity’s full impacts on the planet are not even required to be reported."
A key factor in the under-reporting, according to the investigation, are nations' dodgy figures on CO2 emissions from land use, like doubtful numbers on how much carbon forests are able to absorb, and thus how much countries can subtract from their reported emissions.
As a prime example, the Post used the palm oil industry in Malaysia, a country that most recently submitted its emissions figures in 2016. In a likely exaggeration, the country claimed its forests were sinking over 243 million tons of carbon, "slashing 73 percent of emissions from its bottom line."
In a Monday tweet sharing the Post's investigation, the Washington, D.C. branch of climate group Extinction Rebellion accused politicians of "fudg[ing] the numbers."
"When will the lying, the deception, the false promises stop?" the group tweeted. "Only systemic change at a scale and speed unprecedented in human history can get us out of this mess."
War Helps Fuel the Climate Crisis as U.S. Military Carbon Emissions Exceed 140+ Nations
1bn people will suffer extreme heat at just 2C heating, say scientists
A billion people will be affected by extreme heat stress if the climate crisis raises the global temperature by just 2C, according to research released by the UK Met Office at the Cop26 climate summit. The scientists said that would be a 15-fold increase on the numbers exposed today. ...
The Met Office assessed wet-bulb temperature, which combines both heat and humidity. Once this measure reaches 35C, the human body cannot cool itself by sweating and even healthy people sitting in the shade will die within six hours. The Met Office analysis used a wet-bulb temperature limit of 32C, at which workers must rest regularly to avoid heat exhaustion, for at least 10 days a year.
If efforts to end the climate emergency fail and temperatures rise by 4C, half of the world’s population will suffer from this extreme heat stress.
Heat is the most obvious impact of global heating and extreme heat in cities across the world has tripled in recent decades, according to a recent study. In the summer of 2020, more than a quarter of the US population suffered from the effects of extreme heat, with symptoms including nausea and cramps.
At least 166,000 people died due to heatwaves around the globe in the two decades to 2017, according to the World Health Organization. The UK government has been repeatedly warned by its official climate advisers that the country is “woefully unprepared” for increased heat, particularly in vulnerable locations such as hospitals and schools.
Cop26 legitimacy questioned as groups excluded from crucial talks
The legitimacy of the Cop26 climate summit has been called into question by civil society participants who say restrictions on access to negotiations are unprecedented and unjust. As the Glasgow summit enters its second week, observers representing hundreds of environmental, academic, climate justice, indigenous and women’s rights organisations warn that excluding them from negotiating areas and speaking to negotiators could have dire consequences for millions of people.
Observers act as informal watchdogs of the summit – the eyes and ears of the public during negotiations to ensure proceedings are transparent and reflect the concerns of communities and groups most likely to be affected by decisions. But their ability to observe, interact and intervene in negotiations on carbon markets, loss and damage and climate financing has been obstructed during the first week, the Guardian has been told.
“Civil society voices are critical to the outcome of Cop, but we’ve not been able to do our jobs. If participation and inclusion are the measure of legitimacy, then we’re on very shaky grounds,” said Tasneem Essop, the executive director of Climate Action Network (CAN), which represents more than 1,500 organisations in over 130 countries. ...
In the run-up to Cop26, the UK government had boasted that Glasgow would be the most inclusive summit on record. In reality, about two-thirds of civil society organisations who usually send delegates to Cop have not travelled to Glasgow due to “vaccine apartheid”, changing travel rules, extortionate travel costs and Britain’s hostile immigration system.
COP26: Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Outnumber Any Nation’s Delegates
A coalition of watchdog groups estimated Monday that fossil fuel industry representatives have a larger presence at COP26 than officials from any single country, a finding that further intensified environmentalists’ concerns about the legitimacy of the high-stakes climate summit. After pouring over a 1,600-page United Nations list of approved COP26 attendees, the coalition led by Global Witness published an analysis showing that at least 503 fossil fuel lobbyists have been admitted to the summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
That means the oil and gas industry — the principal driver of the crisis that COP26 was ostensibly convened to tackle — unofficially has a bigger delegation at the conference than Brazil, which has the largest national presence at COP26 with 479 representatives. Fossil fuel industry influence-peddlers at COP26 also far outnumber the representatives of nations that have been most impacted by the climate crisis over the past two decades, including Bangladesh, Mozambique and Haiti.
Prominent industry attendees, according to the new analysis, include “delegates from over 100 fossil fuel companies” — such as the oil giants Shell and BP — “who openly stated their affiliation, attending the talks as part of country delegations or with business groups” like the International Chamber of Commerce. “For example,” the analysis notes, “one in eight delegates from Russia’s three hundred-strong delegation were from the fossil fuel industry while lobbyists were also included in Canada’s and Brazil’s official delegations. In total, 27 different official country delegations included fossil fuel lobbyists.”
Pascoe Sabido, a campaigner for Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO ) — one of the groups behind the new research — said in a statement that “COP26 is being sold as the place to raise ambition, but it’s crawling with fossil fuel lobbyists whose only ambition is to stay in business.”
About 26,000 tonnes of plastic Covid waste pollutes world’s oceans
Plastic waste from the Covid-19 pandemic weighing 25,900 tonnes, equivalent to more than 2,000 double decker buses, has leaked into the ocean, research has revealed. The mismanaged plastic waste, consisting of personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves, vastly exceeded the capability of countries to process it properly, researchers said.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, an estimated 8.4m tonnes of plastic waste has been generated from 193 countries, according to the report, published on Monday.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increased demand for single-use plastics that intensifies pressure on an already out-of-control global plastic waste problem,” said Yiming Peng and Peipei Wu from Nanjing University, the authors of Magnitude and impact of pandemic-associated plastic waste published in the online journal PNAS. ...
The scientists predicted that by the end of the century almost all pandemic-associated plastics will end up on either the seabed or on beaches.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
The ACA (Obamacare) Has Performed As Predicted
If Democrats return to centrism, they are doomed to lose against Trump
Michael Hudson: Did the Squad Give Away Their Bargaining Power?
Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial: man who survived gunshot thought ‘he was going to die’
Armed attack on Brazilian Amazon community while delegate at Cop26
‘Like slave and master’: DRC miners toil for 30p an hour to fuel electric cars
Julian Assange's Fiancée: U.K. Blocking Our Attempt to Marry While He Is Tortured in Belmarsh Prison
Here's The REAL Reason Elon Musk Is Selling TESLA Stock
NEW Doc Reveals Pete Buttigieg EMPTIER Than We Thought
Ryan Grim: Dems’ Big Problem— People Don’t Like Them. The Result Is A Red WAVE
A Little Night Music
Goree Carter - Hoy Hoy
Goree Carter - I've Got News For You
Goree Carter - Bad Feeling
Goree Carter - Working With My Baby
Goree Carter- She's Just Old Fashioned
Goree Carter and His Rocking Rhythm Orchestra - Come On Let’s Boogie
Goree Carter - She's My Best Bet
Goree Carter - Bullcorn
Goree Carter - I'm Your Boogie Man
Comments
didn't take long to double cross progressives
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/politics/cbo-score-timing-build-back-bett...
"CBO says social spending bill score 'will take longer,' in potential blow to Democrats' timing"
"The Congressional Budget Office, a federal agency that provides budget and economic information to Congress, said on Tuesday that it cannot give a definitive date for when it will have a final cost estimate score of the bill. This could push the timetable for when the House can hold a final vote on the bill because a group of moderate Democrats say getting a final CBO score is a prerequisite to their voting for the bill."
So the vote, "guaranteed" for a week or so from now, might be after Thanksgiving which means...what? And likely will be gutted, too.
kicking the can down the road
ain't the same as actually doing their friggin' job
time strangulates progress in this congress
feature not a bug
evening shahryar...
well, it was clear that any bill that the owners don't like is not going to get through the congressional sausage grinder. the only thing to guess at is what method(s) will be employed to destroy any element of the bill that is helpful to working people. will it be professor plum or colonel mustard this time, or perhaps miss scarlet will make an appearance?
A deal is a deal and we have been hooked. If we back out of the
natural gas deals chances are we'll get sued by other countries we've signed trade deals with in an ISDS suit. Investor State Dispute Settlement. I have had a feeling they were planning this, another Huge theft for at least six or seven years. Awards in energy related ISDS cases have already gone as high as billions of dollars, I think it was 50 billion Euros in the Yukos case.
No nomatter how many or if lots of people freeze. Its a matter of principle for the US plutocracy. Enrgy belongs to the corporations who mine it. So does the new liquid gold, water..
. If we backed out, what would other resource rich poor countries do when it turns out a deal to sell oil or whatever seems like it was a mistake? We just made a huge new deal to sell China natural gas over the next 20 years.
The PIIE also claims that such a changing of minds ex post facto violates WTO law. I bet they have us trapped.
Who owns the natural gas on public lands? Ask its owners? I bet they have a soolid case. People shouldnt look to Biden for help. He's just a politician. If he tried to pull out of a trade deal they would probablyt fine us so much that it would kill Social Security and Medicare. We can pretty much count on them doing that. Look who we're dealing with. Again they see it as the good fight, a matter of principle.
This looks interesting.
"The World Trade Organisation (WTO) 2
Whilst the Second World War was still raging, in 1943 the US and British
governments embarked on a series of bilateral discussions aimed at designing a post-
War international trading system free of the protectionism of the inter-War years
(Cohn, 2000, p.205).In the autumn of 1945, the US State Department floated a
document on trade and employment that was to be the basis of multilateral
negotiations. It constituted an outline for a proposed International Trade Organisation
(ITO). This document was developed as the basis for the Havana Charter that was
discussed by 23 leading capitalist countries in March 1948. Meanwhile, in 1946, the
same 23 nations met to discuss the much narrower issue of tariff reduction. At this
meeting it was decided to meet up the following year in Geneva to negotiate to reduce
tariffs on about a fifth of the world’s trade. Thus, in October 1947 the first round of
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) resulted in these 23 countries
signing up to the agreement, which became effective on 1st January 1948 (MSN
Encarta, 2000a). Furthermore, the signatories agreed to accept some of the trade rules
enshrined within the draft ITO charter (ahead of the forthcoming meeting in Havana)
in order to protect the tariff reductions negotiated in Geneva.
Thus, the GATT emerged after the Second World War as a charter for the ITO, which
was envisioned as an agency of the United Nations (MSN Encarta, 2000a).The ITO
was to complement the World Bank and the International Monetary Funding
establishing international trade rules and co-operation (DTI, 1999, p.1).However, it
was at the meeting in Havana in March 1948 that this broader scenario started to
unravel. The main aim of the meeting was to attain agreement to the formation of a
permanent ITO. The 1947 GATT agreement was to be incorporated within the ITO.
The ITO charter was to have had ‘an ambitious agenda’ (DTI, 1999, p.1). It was to
cover not just trading relations but also employment, international investment,
economic development, services, competition, restrictive practices and commercial
policy and commodity agreements. It also included the administrative arrangements
for a permanent ITO (Penrose, 1953; Reisman, 1996; DTI, 1999; Cohn, 2000). As
Tabb noted “The ITO was to impose order on the world trading system, in order to
avoid the kind of protectionist downward spiral in trade which occurred in the 1930s.”
(2000, p.4)
The ITO was not ratified at Havana (or thereafter). Cohn (2000, pp. 205-206) presents
the ITO as a dog‘s breakfast, with complex rules and ‘numerous escape clauses and
exceptions in the charter [that] would interfere with trade liberalization’ (p.205).He
also noted the disruptive effects for the ITO charter of the strong US protectionist
lobby (ibid.). Yet Tabb (2000) argues that it was the possibility of the ITO providing
substantive protection on labour standards and meeting the needs of developing
countries that effectively sank it. From a United States’ perspective, the ITO
framework for regulating international trade yielded too much to workers’ rights and
Third World countries’ yearnings for preferential treatment in trade, and set too tight a
leash on big corporations’ market power (promising anti-trust laws) (Tabb, 2000, pp.
4-5). On this score, the United States dragged its heels over ratifying the ITO. In
1950, the ITO failed to win ratification in the US Congress and was consigned to
history .The GATT, meanwhile, remained in use to regulate international trade.
From its ‘provisional’ status a precursor to the ITO in 1948, the GATT provided a
legal and institutional framework for international trade and tariffs to 1995 (DTI,
1999). Its participants were ‘contracting parties’ rather than members; the GATT was
never formally constituted. It aimed at non-discrimination in the sense that all
participants were to be treated equally, such that when a country reduced trade tariffs
for one GATT participant it had to do so for all. Secondly, there was clause that
enabled a GATT participant to withdraw its tariff reduction if it seriously harmed’ its
domestic producers (MSN Encarta, 2000a). This was a loophole that GATT
participants were keen to exploit, pointing towards a need for more formal trade
dispute mechanism. The GATT participants sponsored eight trade rounds’ in all. The
“Kennedy Round” (1962-67) established a set of trade negotiation rules when parties
disagreed. The Tokyo Round (1973-79) established series of non-tariff barrier codes
of practice in the areas of government procurement, customs valuation, subsidies and
countervailing measures, anti-dumping standards and import licensing (Antweiler,
1995).
The final “Uruguay Round” (1986-94) broadened the GATT agreement further by
limiting agricultural subsidies and including trade in services and intellectual property
within its scope. This round established the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The
GATT and the WTO co-existed throughout 1995, and the former was wound up in
December 1995. Trade agreements established by the GATT became incorporated
within the WTO agreement (MSN Encarta, 2000b). In 1995, GATT’s functions were
taken over by the WTO.
The WTO is based permanently in Geneva and is controlled by a General Council
comprising member states’ ambassadors (who also serve on WTO committees)
(ibid.). The Ministerial Conference meets every two years, and appoints the WTO’s
Director-General. It had a budget of £48m and 500 staff in 1999 (Legrain, 2000,
p.30), by 2001 a budget of $78 million and a staff of 530 (Economist, 2001). 3 The
Seattle meeting in 1999 was the 3rd Ministerial Conference. There were 135 member
countries represented at Seattle, and further nations had observer status there. By
2001, the WTO had 142 member nations (Tibbett, 2001, p.10).
As Bakan (2000, pp.22-23) has noted, the WTO extends far the remit of the old
GATT. It includes a series of other agreements, for example:
Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMS);
Trade Related Intellectual Property Measures (TRIPS);
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS);
Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Standards Agreement (SPS) (setting restrictive
standards on government policies regarding food and safety and animal and
plant health);
Financial Services Agreement (FSA) - designed to remove all obstacles to
financial services.
Agreements on agriculture, information technology and telecommunications.
Furthermore, the WTO incorporates a complex Dispute Settlement Process. Tribunals
operate in secret to settle disputes between member states. Only national governments
(continued>>) are allowed to
(continued>>) are allowed to participate, and there is no outside appeals procedure (Working Group
on the WTO/MAI, 1999, p.5). Rulings generate three possibilities. First, losing
countries have a set time to comply and they must change their laws to conform to
WTO stipulations. Secondly, if they refuse to do this then they pay permanent
compensation to the winning country. The third possibility is that they face non-
negotiated trade sanctions (ibid.). As Smith and Moran (2000, p.66) have noted:
What distinguishes the WTO among international agreements is its Dispute
Resolution Panel. The panel possesses far-reaching sanctioning powers over
member countries, which it uses to ensure compliance with WTO commitments.
No other international body has such strong enforcement capabilities.
The WTO is ‘ the only global institution that even the US and the EU are supposed to
obey’, whereas the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have influence
only over ‘weak developing countries’, notes Martin Wolf (1999),a journalist for the
Financial Times.
On disputes other than trade, the WTO operates on a system of ‘consensus’, but in
practice this process is driven by the “Quad”- the US, the EU, Japan and Canada -
whose representatives meet daily in Geneva to address these non-trade issues (Bakan,
2000, p.23). Representatives from the “Quad” are lobbied heavily by transnational
corporations. Furthermore, representatives from transnational corporations ‘sit on all
the important advisory committees’ deciding detailed policy and set the agenda (Price,
Pollock and Shaoul, 1999, p.1889). Thus, the WTO provides an ‘enforceable global
commercial code’ based on close relations with transnational capital, making it ‘one
of the main mechanisms of corporate globalization’ (Working Group on the
WTO/MAI, 1999: 1). It is a ‘forum for trade rights of capital, on terms negotiated by
the agencies of governments that represent the interests of capital. No other rights
count’ (Tabb, 2000, p.6). Trade barriers are essentially ‘anything that can limit profits
made via trade or investment’ (Puckett, 2000). Major corporations have lobbyists
settled permanently at the WTO’s lair in Geneva, and representatives of corporations
sit on some of the many WTO committees and working groups.
The outlook underpinning the WTO is deregulation, with incremental ‘freedom for
transnational capital to do what it wants, where and when it wants’ (Tabb, 2000, p.5).
As William Tabb has noted, the ‘WTO’s fundamental postulate is that trade and
investment liberalization lead to more competition, greater market efficiency and so,
necessarily, to a higher standard of living’ (ibid.). In practice, standards of living for
many countries in the poorer South have declined absolutely or relatively (compared
to the richer Northern nations) in recent years. These principle sand propositions are
the essence of the concept of “neo-liberalism” in international economy. However:
While its proponents say it is based on “free trade”, in fact, the WTO’s 700-plus
pages of rules set out a comprehensive system of corporate-managed trade.
Under the WTO’s system of corporate-managed trade, economic efficiency,
reflected in short-term corporate profits, dominates other values. The neo liberal
ideological underpinning of corporate-managed trade is presented as TINA -
“There Is No Alternative” - an inevitable outcome rather than the culmination of
a long-term effort to write and put in place rules designed to benefit corporations
and investors, rather than communities, workers and the environment. (Working
Group on the WTO/MAI, p.1 - original emphasis)
The anger directed at the WTO’s 3rd Ministerial meeting in Seattle late November -
early December 1999 was underwritten by over fifty years of capital-friendly
developments in organisational changes in the international trading infrastructure. Yet
Seattle was an instant within a series of acts of resistance to global capital. These
included landless peasants (NST) movements in Brazil, Mexico’s Zapatistas, the
farmers of India’s Karnataka state, a 50,000 strong demonstration in the Niger Delta,
Jubilee 2000, the J18 Carnival Against Capitalism in London 1999, and more besides
(Bakan, 2000; Madden,2000). Peter McLaren (2000, p.26) reminds us that 10,000
protestors picketed the WTO’s Second Ministerial Meeting in Geneva in May 1998.
Ward and Wadsworth argue that: ‘Seattle was not the beginning, but the result of
many small to medium movements that have been gathering strength for over two
years’ (2000, p.4).
The Seattle Ministerial was set up to produce an agenda for the next “Millennial
Round” of negotiations. When the “Millennial Round” opened in Seattle on 30th
November 1999, the ministers and delegates were confronted by 40,000 anti-WTO
protestors, which was more than the ‘20-30 thousand that shut down Interstate 5 to
protest about the Vietnam War’ (Tabb, 2000, p.1). The protestors represented around
800 trade union and activist organisations from more than seventy-five countries
(Tabb, 2000, p.2). The vibrancy, creativity and courage that they incorporated into
their strategies for shutting down the Seattle Ministerial were stunning. Despite being
shot at with rubber bullets, tear-gassed and pepper sprayed the mass of protestors
prevented ministers and the WTO entourage from addressing their agenda; they ‘left
Seattle in disarray’ (Bakan, 2000, p.19). As some have noted (e.g. Mandel and
Magnussen, 1999), the limited discussions that did take place in Seattle merely
showed up serious rifts within the WTO as some Third World countries set out to
block proposals for the next trade round.
(In Doha, starting on October 2001, talks resumed in the immediate aftermath of the 9-11 terror incident and the Western countries largely got their way with the developing world. However the Doha negotiations collapsed in disarray over the next decade over a number of issues. Its well worth reading the discussions on the DOHA impassse written during these years., it should be obvious that the US and UK/and EU were desperate to pull off some kind of stunt to cram this undemocratic allegedly "rules-based" international trading system down the world's throat, before the demands of the Global South and Baby Boom prevented what was to be a global triumph of capital in the aftermath of the demise of Communism. It became their way or the highway, The Quad countries made it look like the future was literally privatization of everything, in an atmosphere of triumphalism.) Despite much of the world's opposition, they still pretend there is agreement, when there isnt. Particularly on their global privatization of scarce resources like water, healthcare and higher education.
Furthermore, some countries made pledges
to ‘free trade’ whilst lobbying seriously for rules favourable to their own economies
(Mandel and Magnussen, 1999, p.39).Finally, Marshall (1999) points towards familiar
EU/US splits in Seattle. Even without the protestors it would have been no picnic. The
Doha Ministerial of November 2001 attempted to pick up the pieces and drive trade
liberalisation forward once more.
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
The GATS seeks to open up 160 services sectors to international capital. Specifically,
it aims to create a ‘level playing field’ thereby avoiding discrimination against foreign
corporations entering services markets. The process of trade liberalisation in services
(including currently public ones) is progressive; it will be deepened and strengthened
over time, and Part IV of the GATS Agreement makes this clear. In this scenario,
‘public’ services will progressively be turned into internationally tradable
commodities. UK Government claims that public services are exempt from the GATS
have no firm foundation. Once a service has been committed to the GATS there is no
possibility of reversing the position (Kelk and Worth, 2002, p.2).
As Steve Kelk (2002) notes, the GATS cuts deepest into services trade regulation
through its National Treatment (NT), Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) and Market
Access (MA) disciplines. The NT trade rule requires that foreign services providers be
‘treated at least as well as domestic service providers’ (Kelk, 2002, p.26). The MFN
rule means that ‘the best treatment accorded to any foreign service provider must be
accorded “immediately and unconditionally “to all foreign service providers’
(Grieshaber-Otto and Sanger, 2002,p.iv). The MA GATS rule means that
governments are prevented from ‘introducing quantitative restrictions on the amount
of trade activity in a sector’ (ibid.). Hence, member states’ economic policy options
are curtailed by the MA rule. Finally, the transparency rule stipulates that member
governments must publish details of all measures - local, regional and national - that
may affect the operation of the GATS treaty (Grieshaber-Otto and Sanger, 2002, p.iv).
These ‘top down’ rules are supplement by ‘bottom-up’ bilateral commitments, where
individual members agree to open up service sectors to GATS disciplines, and can
request that other members do so too. The current GATS2000 negotiations are well
under way in this horse-trading process.
International trade law lecturer Markus Krajewski has analysed the GATS Agreement
in detail. He concluded that the Agreement makes it impossible to tell whether public
services are included under GATS. This makes the GATS fiendishly difficult to
combat on the basis of what is actually written down in the Agreement. On the one
hand, if it was clear that public services were included under the GATS then
governments, corporations and pro-GATS lobbyists could give no assurances that the
‘GATS has nothing to do with privatisation’, as they do currently. Their reassurances
to concerned organisations and their patronising arguments that anti-GATS folk are
merely scare mongering would not be taken seriously, as they sometimes are today.
On the other hand, if it were clear that public services were excluded from GATS
provisions then two things would be obvious. First, anti-GATS activists and trade
unions could defend public services from the GATS monster on the basis of
international trade law, and corporations attempting to argue that public services were
incorporated within the GATS would clearly be on a loser. Anti-GATS forces could
confront corporations that attempted to use the GATS to further their interests in
public services by using the actual Agreement against them. Secondly, it would be
clear that New Labour is really keen on the business takeover of public services, and
is not being forced or cajoled into it by trade rules framed by some distant, business-
friendly institution such as the WTO.
Meanwhile, the opacity of the GATS is cunning indeed. It has the potential to
intellectually disarm GATS critics. Anti-GATS activists have no firm footing for
critiquing the Agreement.
The current round of GATS negotiations at the WTO headquarters in Geneva started
up in February 2000; almost directly after the WTO Ministerial Meeting in Seattle
late-1999 broke up in disarray following the anti-WTO protests there. An overall deal
has to be brokered for December 2004, to come into force in 2005. So for anti-GATS
activists, trade unions and defenders of public services there is some urgency. The
following section focuses specifically on the relationship between the GATS and the
business takeover of schools
Above is the introduction, with minor commenting by myself to "Schools and the GATS Enigma" by
Glenn Rikowski
School of Education, University College Northampton"
The original should be read to continue reading this discussion.
oh my
that's a screed and a half
if the bully US can ignore treaties to suit their agenda
none of this matters, except to us peons
money talks and BS walks away unheeded
interesting round-up on your GATS
don't doubt there is some truth in there
the results of undermining our economy tho
are being blamed on supply chains which is
more BS.
IMO this is staging to explain the collapse of the dollar
coming soon to a bank or store nearby
cheers
evening zed...
heh, perhaps the best cure for the problem is to stage a revolution and have the new government repudiate the debts of the old government because all of the instruments were negotiated by an obviously captured, corrupt government.
Your arguments are based on a faulty implication .
Why don't we face facts? Is it just too terrifying the gulf between irrefutable fact as enshrined in international law again and again, fact and the lying of politicians empty theatrics and their dishonest claims?
we actually face facts every waking day of our lives
ain't about internationally enshrined hubris
although you make many good points
in my mind there is little authority you or I have
to change the tidal wave of devastation being cast
our way. Awareness is one thing, actionable solutions
are another.
thanks
[video:https://youtu.be/Nubi_xJJ1Jg]
Its just business. Also the people of the US are engaging in
very deep denial while during the last 50 years or so the entire world has been changed.
In a huge control fraud.
Imagine you had a rich relative that again and again had promised you a generous inheritance, while at the same time, promising all the other relatives the same inheritance, even selling their wealth off to countless other straw man buyers. THis all Before their death. So at the moment of death, their "estate" consists entirely of debts they owe to everybody under the sun. But you have nothing in writing. Face the facts. Stop pretending you're rich, you aren't. You cannot afford all this generosity. If you knew the facts, and stopped lying to yiourselves, you would not be letting the wealthy get away with stealing all this. How are you going to survive? Think about that. You cant all live off of nothing.
Work? Well, most people work, are they rich? No. Dont think it will be any better for you. Why would it be, are you special? Do you all have any unique skills nobody else has which make money fall into your lap?
Whatever it is, its now encumbered in debt.
The creditors are not going to let you all just walk away paying them nothing.
Maybe the (labor) suppliers want more dough re-mi than our
owners in the castle are willing to pay them?
They have no ties to each other besides the currency that you say is going to become worthless.
Without that money no goods are forthcoming. How would they have extra to keep any decades-old obligations here. They have to stay in business to pay their debts to you, right? If they paid you they would not be able to pay their workers, their employees. Their families depend on them getting paid, and they are actually doing the work.
Plus, Africa is where their projected growth is now. Not here.
GATS sets up a system for endless supply of low cost labor. People have to eat, right?
Couple good tweets ?
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
evening azazello...
heh, that qanon anonymous video was great, thanks!
rules are for the little people.
It doesnt seem so long ago that Iwas waiting with London Breed
in a line at the Potrero Hill UPS Office.
This ship has long sailed
https://www.reddit.com/r/Political_Revolution/comments/qq62xn/even_more_...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw]
Thanks Joe for the EB's, stay safe everyone!
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Yosemite?
Yep enough. Our government sold us out long ago but people still pretend that we are all that when we are first in the bad things and last in the good things.
The Q video was funny too. Too many people believe that it’s okay to give tax breaks to big business because they create jobs. Now that’s funny.
In that vein this fits right in.
Maybe one of the countries invited to this will call Biden out to his face. I like to imagine it’s Trump doing the boneheaded things that Biden’s doing. Shitlibs would be all over him for it and pointing out the things this article does. But maybe not. They were very quiet when the UN report on our poverty showed how bad it is.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening ggersh...
that was pretty good. the nostalgia section was a bit over the top because america was never really great nor have all of its citizens ever been free.
Please watch
Attica on HBO.
If you have any illusions about exactly who this country is and has always been, watch this documentary with actual footage from 1971. The final frames with footage showing what happened to the prisoners who "survived" is, well I have no adequate words.
29 prisoners and 10 guards died during the revolt ---All of them murdered by the forces of law and order. Not the ready for Prime TV version of Chicago PD. The sick brutal sad truth.
NYCVG
They let Abby Martin ask a question ...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0DE1M5wpgY width:600 height:360]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
heh...
wow, these clowns really demonstrated their cluelessness with their answers. i can see why they'd want to clean the room after all of the bullshit that pallone and pelosi just spewed all over.
Sea level rise
So why did Obama buy a house on the beach as have other rich people who say we must address climate crisis?
lol,,Obuma scolded Russia and China for not showing up to the climate thingy and said that they need to do more. He had 8 damn years to do something about it and instead opened up vast areas for drilling and fracking and sent HerHeinous around the world to get countries to do the same. Then bragged about how well he screwed us. What a f-ing turd.
Too bad Abby couldn’t do a 2 parter on her question. 2nd part: how do you square giving the military billions more while hundreds of thousands of people are living in tents? I’d love to see Nancy try to answer that.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Uh, Snoop,
she didn't answer that question, and a follow up question would have had her foaming at the mouth.
I don't want to see actual mouth foam! Lol!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
nancy (my ice cream melted) pelosi
is a cant. (Likely spelled cant wrong).
Not only will this nation be better without her, the world will be better.
That video is a prime example of gibberish.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Good evening Joe. Thanks for the news and blues.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
thanks! have a great evening!
hey, joe!
Great music, great gathering of bad news, since that is mostly all there is.
The 5th client of the year who flipped out and made me feel endangered, happened to raise a stink today. My handsome hubby acted as body guard at my office today. Not his first rodeo. I wonder if he has regrets.
Let's see if Sinema gets re-elected. She may be the absolute proof if she does, that we do NOT have a democracy, dumbed down enough for everyone to clearly understand the problem.
And stay safe, do not get shot by some nut, ok?
That works for me.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
glad that everybody likes bad news, since that's all there is.
sorry to hear that the nuts are giving you reason to feel edgy. i hope that everything works out well and your client gets what he needs to keep him calm and stable.
i'd be delighted to see sinema get a comeuppance after her atrocious behavior, however that may be an uphill battle given the vast amount of cash arrayed against that outcome. i guess we'll see.
take care and have a great evening!
At least one of the clients
went to an alcohol rehab for 40 days. He returned to normal. However, the PTSD Vet, in all those vet programs, still wants to "do something" to me. I had to sit right in front of him in court today. Euww...
I look forward to spending lots of time with crazies I don't know.
It was just a shitty day, except for TLOML.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981