Those That Do Not Understand That Economic Issues Are Intertwined W/Civil Rights... Including GLBTQ

[WillyT]

Last edited Tue May 19, 2015, 11:24 PM - Edit history (1)

Trade and the Enforcement Issue
Mike Lux - HuffPo
Posted: 05/18/2015 12:26 pm EDT Updated: 1 hour ago

<snip>

The trade debate is a thoroughly engrossing saga full of intriguing story lines, as both parties find themselves in civil wars as the strange bedfellows of Obama, McConnell, and Boehner, and the combined might of corporate America, try to ram home a deal that, with such an alliance, should be easy to ram. But the fight goes on, and the story lines keep getting more interesting: Will the tea party faction in the House finally trust Obama with the kind of unlimited power on trade he is asking for? Will Hillary take a stand? Will Obama keep taking pot shots at Elizabeth Warren? Will Pelosi rally the Democratic troops in the House to be against Obama the same way Warren and Harry Reid have in the Senate?

I have worked and written a lot on the TPP fight over the last couple of years, and it is going to be intense all the way through, but I wanted to throw another thing into the whole trade discussion today, and that is the issue of enforcement: Why are we to have any faith in the language of these trade deals on labor, the environment, or anything else if the administration won't enforce the rules of trade that already exist? We have seen examples of the lack of enforcement time and time again over the years on deals relating to China and many other countries. One of the big issues that roiled the Senate vote earlier this week was currency manipulation, and Chinese currency manipulation is the classic enforcement issue most on people's minds, but it is far from the only one. Elizabeth Warren just issued an incredibly important new report on the lack of enforcement on arguably the most important single issue, labor standards.

One of the most egregious examples of the lack of enforcement of trade rules is the lack of enforcement around the massive subsidies that Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are giving to their countries' state-owned airlines. Under the rules of the WTO, this kind of state subsidy is exactly the kind of thing that is not supposed to happen. Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, and Emirates Airlines have (according to research done by the admittedly biased U.S. airline industry, although having looked at their white paper myself, I feel that the subsidies they list are quite well-documented) between them received over $42 billion in different kinds of subsidies over the past decade -- subsidies that include various sorts of grants, no-interest loans with no repayment schedule, free land, and free airport fees. But the most outrageous subsidy of all, and the most telling to future trade agreements, is that Qatar and UAE have a ban on all labor unions. Yes, that's right, a complete ban on unions, and yet the United States is not enforcing trade sanctions against them.

The TPP may or not have the most progressive language ever when it comes to labor standards; we won't know until the administration declassifies the document and lets us non-corporate execs take a look at it. But even if the language is the best ever, that wouldn't amount to a hill of beans given that the administration doesn't seem to want to enforce the trade standards that are currently in writing in the WTO.

That's not the half of it. Qatar and UAE are some of the worst human-rights-abusing countries in the world in general. Qatar has been condemned by John Kerry for human trafficking and slavery; UAE has had massive issues with denial of the freedom of expression; both countries have laws on their books allowing blatant discrimination against women and the LGBT community; and most outrageous of all, UAE actually regards homosexual activity as punishable by death. And the three airlines these countries own all follow the kinds of discriminatory practices that their countries practice.

UAE and Qatar want to be our country's modern trading partners, given the same rights and status as first-world countries, but on trafficking, women's rights, LGBT rights, freedom of expression, and labor rights, they want to be in the 14th century...

<snip>

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/trade-and-the-enforcement-issue_b_7306060.html

[jonno99]

1. Excellent - thanks for posting this. nt

[WillyT]

4. You Are Quite Welcome ...

[NYC_SKP]

2. This is an understandably very sensitive issue, but I want to say that I agree.

Often, hell, ALWAYS, economic discrimination is among the first weapons used against blacks, gays, and women, in terms of hiring, pay and benefits, promotions, housing choice, refusal of services, etc.

And all of these things I listed are economic issues.

The Right has long played us against one another, it makes us weaker, we shouldn't submit to that.

We can coalesce and overcome without losing our identities.

[WillyT]

3. I Agree... Thank You !!!

[DJ13]

5. Agreed!

Thats why I posted this short quip yesterday in a Manny thread.........

At least 17 years! [View all]

Last edited Mon May 18, 2015, 05:51 PM - Edit history (2)
Do you believe, as I do, that social progress is as important as economic progress?

Yes?

Then I recommend that you join me in backing Bernie Sanders, who favored marriage equality at least 17 years before Hillary Clinton.

At least 17 years!

Proof that a single candidate can be a leader on social and economic issues at the same time, although some people seem to think that's impossible for some reason.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6690959

108. Social progress is useless in an economically conservative environment
Of course that means in more ways than one Bernie is definitely a better candidate than Hillary.

[daredtowork]

6. The separation of the economic from the social is ahistoric and lacks context

The reason people supposedly separate the social from the economic in the race conversation (but just rewind and replay this argument for feminism as well) is that "a poor white man can attend a rich white man's party while a rich black man is excluded".

The reason is supposedly *just* because people with darker skin tones are psychologically not tolerated and excluded. Racism is not learned and cultural behavior, but some instinctive behavior with origins in the amygdala. Racism can only be addressed through acknowledgement of that innate bias.

The people who hold economic views about racism also believe that stereotypes build up over time, through history, experience, and cultural practice. The police find lots of crime occurring in poor black neighborhoods because of poverty: they start to associate black people with crime: voila, racial profiling. However, the poverty in those neighborhoods, can be sourced further back to original economic injustices: employment discrimination, housing policy, even all the way back to slavery. Learned associations build up, children learn prejudices from their parents.

It seems to me that the high level, meta discussions of racism have evolved to the point where the persuasive arguments usually involve a combination of the two (nature/nurture).

And the standard views on DU also seem to involve a combination of the social/economic for both racism and feminism.

That's why I assumed that when people try to split off the social from the economic that it's just a rather awkward political maneuver that assumes more unity can be found in the "social", and abandoning the "economic" will just trim the "wing".

I find it strange that some people seem to take it farther than a political maneuver and seem to be vesting some personal commitment in "social" vs. "economic".

The whole thing makes me queasy, because on the feminism side, I associate focusing on the social with upper class, white women getting their policy moves made, while separating themselves from poor women of color. That's what focusing on the social meant in the 1980s, at least. It does freak me out when I see it again here, even if the connotation is now something different.

[WillyT]

7. Do YOU Believe... That The Society Constructed As The Model For The Rest Of The Planet...

Should Follow Your Advice ???

[daredtowork]

8. I'm lost

I'm not giving any advice here...just saying that I can't separate the economic from the social and why.

Also, I added where the pure social side and pure economic side each derived their thinking.

Do I have advice?

[WillyT]

9. My Apologies... There've Been Several Posts That Asked That Question ... Not Going After You...

Just wondering where the several hundred are now.

[daredtowork]

10. lol, np, I've replied to the wrong post before, too. XD nt