I absolutely, positively will not vote for ANYONE supporting that thing. I will not contribute my energy to a platform designed to kill my wages, my livelihood, my health, my financial considerations, and ultimately my life.

That's a permanent no-vote, also. If you support this thing, you've lost me forever. I know I personally don't count, but enough of me certainly will.

fel the way you do.

and I hope Sec. Clinton hears you as well, and fully repudiates her "Gold Standard"
steaming pile of legalized robbery of the middle class.

Lost me forever so long as that is supported.

TPP negates anything about helping unions/workers/environment/etc.. biggest elephant in the room.

TPP, but it would be a terrible mistake to cede leadership of the Pacific partnership to China. Plus, it will become reality whether we belong or not, and we will be in an incredibly stronger position to change it from within.

Last edited Thu Jun 30, 2016, 12:32 PM - Edit history (1)

Why would opposing the TPP cede Asia trade to China? We manage to trade quite nicely now, without the neo-liberal trade pact which would simply cede more rights to multinationals and force our workers to compete with slave labor. We lose nothing by rejecting the TPP and everything by opposing it.

whole populations. Talk about propaganda, it doesn't get more asinine than that. And please don't bother saying you weren't really implying this is all a business-corrupted liberal Democrat plot, because we both know that's why the word neoliberal is constantly being used wildly incorrectly.

A trans-Pacific partnership is happening. Our not joining won't change that, merely China would take our place. Got it? An economic alliance of nations circling the Pacific dominated by an authoritarian government bent on expanding its economic and military control across a third of the globe.

That's the most intractable reason among a number of reasons why, even though Hillary seemingly wants to work on the terms some more, Obama has committed to our becoming the dominant member. If we're not in it, we have very little control over what it does, and it would hurt our trade.

not "new"liberal. Obama, both Clintons and the Republican Party are neo-liberals. It has nothing to do with social liberalism. It is a doctrine that promotes the so-called free market over regulation and treats workers as fungible commodities in that market. It has been our economic policy since Reagan. NAFTA and our other trade pacts are all neo-liberal and have resulted in the US going from the world's largest importer of materials and exporter of finished goods, to the world's largest sported of materials and importer of finished goods. Concurrently and as a result, American productivity has increased while wages have not. We have hemorrhage jobs to other countries and our people are falling into poverty. You are naive to think that countries like Japan and Korea will magically fall into the China camp because we don't sign an agreement that gives corporate arbitration panels the ability to subvert our laws and because we don't have to compete with slave labor. You're is the position of the trickle-down Republicans like Reagan and it is your right to believe that. However, as a progressive I support both Democratic candidates who have publicly repudiated the TPP

So-called "neoliberalism" is hard-core conservative, right-wing economic and social ideology. Hard-core libertarians subscribe to much of it and discard the rest -- whatever works to make more money. John Bircher authoritarian conservatives subscribe to much of it. Amoral profiteers ascribe to whatever makes money for them and discard the rest. Right- and left-wing fascists subscribe to much of it.

Neoliberalism is the antithesis of liberalism. You are empowering the activities of these groups by blaming their crimes on their enemies.

The TPP has been appropriately described as "NAFTA on Steroids".

This is a Democrat-supporting site. Stop spreading the lie that the Democratic Party is a hotbed of right-wing neoliberalism.

I posted nothing but historically documented FACTS with references.
What part of my post do you consider a "lie"?

Google "NeoLiberalism and the Democratic Party", and get back to us for an intelligent discussion.

You are supporting the lies I was refuting, and now you are recommending I google for the floods of anti-Democratic Party propaganda topping that search.

Google neoliberalism and conservative to find the truth.

neoliberalism is right wing in nature.

Where you are wrong is that neoliberalism is the model championed by "Third Way" Democrats / DLC / "New" Democrats that is the basis of TPP and other free trade agreements.

There are alternatives methods to frame and organize international trade than the free trade agreements that greatly favor transnational corporations; GATT for example.

Last edited Fri Jul 1, 2016, 10:24 AM - Edit history (1)

benefits them. If neoliberals are extreme right, is it your point that there are no "antithesis" liberals in the Democratic Party? We're all rabid right wingers who ran out the liberals? I thought I was a lifelong liberal. How come I don't know this?

At what point did "third way" formed in 1988--which were pragmatic liberal attempts to progress through a middle path given a mostly conservative-voting electorate--turn into an extreme-right "neoliberal" economic and social ideology of today's Democratic Party? I never heard about that either.

You do realize this was over 20 years ago, that the third way faction no longer exists as a power in the party, that the closest current faction would be the centrists, or "New Democrats," who formed in the late 1990s and are maybe 1 out of 4 in the House. They are centrist liberal but still left of the old third-way mediation attempt.

Btw, many young Democratic voters would have no idea the third way, which made sense in its time, ever existed if the anti-Democrat left wasn't dishonestly pretending it still did.

the Presidential nominee if that person supports it?

I'm NOT trying to put words in your mouth, but for a very long time here people have expressed a lot of concern over the TPP and the apparent support of it by the presumed nominee. We aren't allowed to criticize her in the least at this point, which means this post may be deleted, but everyone who supports her had better be on board for the TPP it looks like.

is for Obama to shove it down our throats as a lame duck so Hillary doesn't have to do it. The corporatist Democrats are working hard to make that happen.

who have been enduring hardships and dying for decades with many now precariously hanging on...

- Free Trader Freak Uncle Alan on 'greater worker insecurity'...

by many times over the strongest nation in the TPP, and we are a voting republic. If workers were "exterminated" it would be with the voters' collusion and cooperation. It could not happen otherwise.

BUT if we were going to collude on our own extermination, membership in the TPP would not matter one way or the other. We don't need New Zealand's help to destroy ourselves.

But of course we're not, not even close. To date we've essentially MERELY colluded, many of us wholeheartedly and abysmally ignorantly, in eliminating our share of the increase in national wealth from increased productivity (including to those now underemployed, not just underpaid), and just look at how pissed off that has made us.

So, maybe straighten the shoulders, gird the loins, and prepare to vote knowledgeably?

Greenspan was appointed by Ronald Reagan, who was elected by a landslide in a national rejection of the previous 40 years of progressive government. Reagan would have lost in a landslide if more people had the slightest clue to what they were actually voting for. It would have taken, what, at most maybe 20% more voters reading maybe 5 good, objective, unbiased articles to realize what "getting off the backs of business" was likely to really mean?

Btw, sure today's dominant business philosophy is almost completely morally bankrupt, the mentality of locusts, but it's terribly dishonest to blame business for our own failure to retrain for new jobs as our old ones were coming to an end. Sure, business knew many of their employees were literally refusing to change, were too improvident and even feckless to take proper care of themselves, and in this laissez-faire era declined the role of babysitter.


We can be mad at them for not taking care of us, but we really shouldn't be. That is and always was our job, and many did are are making good incomes. As for those who waste long hours hanging around by their fingernails, they really should finally be hitting the books. The economy will never be "fixed" enough to pay good wages to workers whose skills are obsolete.

Greenspan was approved as Fed Chair under Reagan in 1987, and worked thereafter for Clinton and Bush until resigning in early 2006 when the MBS derivatives explosion was about to start.

This is to keep them on a different cycle from and relatively independent of the whims of presidents and parties.

Btw, the mass uninformed are actually far less of a problem to democracy than the passionately mis-informed. The former typically have not crippled their ability to reason by a mass of deeply embedded misconceptions.

can't be erased or discredited by pursuing senseless distractions and making condescending statements Hortensis. People know the truth. Much better to relax and have a great day.

That's because he's a conservative economist appointed by a conservative president.

Ascribing conservative crimes to their liberal enemies is what conservative propagandists do. And you.

offensive and intended to bait me into more discussion which I ceased with remarks above for you to have a good day.
An apology for the aggression and insults you flung is necessary but won't happen because you are here to disrupt.
For the last time I'm telling you to stop all posts to me.

really ... how very neo-liberal of you. Your remarks are so very similar to some that Clinton I made lo these long years ago in regard to NAFTA .... and we all know how well that's worked out.

So ... all those factory workers who lost jobs were "too improvident and even feckless to take proper care of themselves" .... and they should have retrained for .... which new jobs exactly? Men and women who'd worked all their lives, taken care of themselves & their families all their lives .... should have retrained for .... McDonald's? Hotel housekeeping? Were they all supposed to become hedge fund managers?

You do realize not everyone wants, or is suited to, some sort of technical work? Many of those who could make a switch DID go back to school .... in computer sciences, etc. - only to eventually lose out to H1b visa imports. Others went to call centers .... then THEY started to be outsourced ....



Really? Sooooooo.... let's see - child care workers, pre-school staff, elder-care home aides, janitors, refuse collectors, farm workers - just a few of the job classifications I can think of that are seriously, seriously underpaid, in which workers "hang [on] by their fingernails," always one day away from a utility shut-off, an eviction, an empty larder, an unpaid car insurance bill - we don't need those workers anymore? They are paid so little because their "skills are obsolete?" We have robots who can do those jobs now?

No. The collusion of "Liberals" and the Democratic Party in throwing away ordinary working people, in destroying public services by privatization, in allowing our infrastructure to crumble while there are millions out of work who could and would do that work, in kow-towing to Wall Street and the Vampire Insurance and Prison-for-Profit and Charter School and dirty energy companies, in allowing a sort of indentured servitude to the Masters for health care while wages eroded and the working class and poor fell deeper and deeper into debt and despair ....THOSE are some reasons why workers are "hanging on" by a thread. Not their "fecklessness" or "obsolete skills."

Your post could serve as a short course in why the working class has abandoned the Democratic party. It abandoned them. There is all sorts of work in the world, and all of it that is useful - like taking care of children and elders, harvesting food, and picking up our garbage deserves dignity and a living wage.

The contempt that absolutely drips off your post for ordinary working people is simply .... I have no words that suffice. I signed in here for the first time in a long time because I could not believe those statements seemed to left unchallenged. I even signed (unread) whatever those terms of service were - if I have violated them, too bad - I'll never be back anyway.

We the People. We each have a vote. You bet, allowing ourselves to be victimized as a people is first, foremost and last our doing.

That doesn't absolve those who take advantage of the people's improvidence in any way--their greed and callousness, even depraved indifference to the lives of others are their doing and responsibility.

But our right and duty to care for ourselves are our own, our achievements are our own, and our failures are our own.

If we liberals don't stand up against corporations and banksters to fix the economy, conservatives will pick up the issue and use it as a racist bludgeon. It's the economy but conservatives will make it about racism.

anti-feminist and anti-multiculturalism and diversity. Trade and trade agreements were not among their priorities

The conservative elite in the UK that promoted Brexit want to escape from the EU's regulations on labor and environmental rights. As with our Trump they 'US vs THEM' rhetoric to motivate the racists and nativists.

They are using economic issues and turning them into racism issues. Working people are angry and are falling further and further behind. They don't really understsnd why. If No One comes along and shows them how it's the economy, they are going to belive the RepubliCONS. If no one tells them the reason they are falling behind and can't afford medicine or pay their kids college or fix the car, they are going to blame immigrants and minorities. They need to know that the uber rich corporations are overcharing monopolies that have extra special secret courts that ensure their power. If they don't know about trade agreements or special deals and taxes for the uber rich, they will listen to the racists and right wing crazies. If the left fails to provide a rational reason for the continued economic depression, then they will buy into what the right is saying.

We have to feed working people the truth for their desperate condition. They can get myth and lies from the right wing. We have to stand up to the corporations and banks and support anti-austerity, anti-facism, anti-corporatism. We can't give them corporatism hidden in trade deals and expect them to vote Democratic - that's what RepubliCONS do. Working people get lies from RepubliCONS, the remaining option is the truth and Democrats should be providing it.

foreigners and trade in order to convince voters not to listen to racists and nativists?

OR we educate them that FDR policies like progressive taxes, a stronger safety net, stronger unions work better than the isolation offered by Trump and his long-deceased mentor, Herbert Hoover. Blaming the relatively little trade that the US has for our problems may be an effective campaign tactic (Trump certainly hopes so), if we can out-Trump Trump, but it sets us up for a backlash when the problems continue after trade gets smaller and smaller as they did for Mr. Hoover.

We control corporations by regulating them like FDR did. He expanded trade and worked with other countries on trade and other issues and controlled corporations. He was quite popular with average Americans if not with 1%.

But if Democrats think they will win over working people and their votes while shoving "free" trade deals down their throat and calling it good for them then RepubliCONS have a better than average chance of winning. It's a lie. And if the working class wants to vote for liars, the best ones are RepubliCONS.

Too bad Obama wants to promote bad deals and tell workers the deals are good. But he had a choice, and his politics has lost a lot of seats in the house and Senate. Hillary does not have to follow him down that path. Standing up and taking a different direction from Obama's "free" trade agenda, would prove she will not be a third term for Obama. It would be a good way for her to differentiate herself.

... and this has haunted the Dems for a long time - the inability to unite the social justice and economic justice policies. It gave us George Wallace in 1972 (winning the DEMOCRATIC primary in several states). It is now bringing us Trump.

... I agree... enough with lip service. We have to finally stand on principle here... not only for our party, but for the country.

Dems with spines .. a beautiful sight.

No one can claim anti-TPP folks are "bashing Hillary", since Hillary totally
SAID that she opposed the TPP, finally, under considerable duress.

... guess we'll find out if she really meant that...

Thanks for the info.

I love my rep!

Ellison has seen. It could always be better but that is a great start.

as a whole is going to delivery a slam to the face of a sitting Democratic President by opposing something he supports, when whether it is in the platform or not will make no difference after Jan 2017..... This is a part of being a Democrat!

Yes. Exactly that.

It's a slam to the face of Obama or a slam to the face of progressives. Pick one.

u can speak for all Progressives..... most progressive Democrats have already joined the march towards history of electing Hillary.(80%+) Primary is over ,,,, like I said , what the DNC puts in its platform is meaning less to the outcome of TTP, which is dead in the water.....let go ,,,join history!

All it will take is one media insinuation that it was excluded to allow Hillary the room to flip-flop on TPP down the road (whether she actually does or intends to is irrelevant) and it's going to start a bloodbath as progressives begin to fear she's exactly the establishment stooge they opposed until she showed she wasn't. Doubly so if she nominates an unquestionable establishment lackey like Kaine for VP.

I don't think it's optional. More so, it's supported by the nominee of the Democratic party so arguments against its inclusion run contrary to good sense and the direction of the party. I don't think we should give a damn what the position of the outgoing President is on this or any matter. His day is passing, the sunset on the relevance of his opinion approaches.

why Progressives are on the fringe of the Party.

FDR, MLK, RFK, Wellstone, La Follette, etc. are spinning in their graves.

Seems rather naive to me. I'll be surprised if it isn't approved before January 20, 2017.

Equally unsurprising, I'm sure...but I strongly support an anti-FTA litmus test.

If you support this shitty TPP or other like it...I think the Democratic party should be showing you the outside of the tent-flaps. Permanently. If someone supports selling the American worker down the pipes, then there is no room in the Democratic party for them and we don't want their support or input.

If people want to vote for liars, the best ones are RepubliCONS. Democrats make bad liars.

Is that trade, in and of itself, is not only a good thing, it is imperative in building relationships with other countries to the point where war becomes too costly in terms of destroying those trade agreements, and the established businesses and jobs either factory workers or farmers etc. Money trumps peace at times, but if its lucrative enough, money trumps war.

The problem is not with hammering out a trade agreement, its hammering out a trade agreement that is lopsided in favour of the corporations, the ones with all the money and state security forces behind them. Give us a trade agreement that recognizes and respects workers rights to a livable wage, environmental protections, and get rid of the awful provision wherein corporations can sue a country if they enact some environmental law, or labour law, or healthcare requirement etc.. and it impacts their bottom line in any way. That is a race to the bottom.