This is the kind of thing that bothers me about Barack Obama. He is dead set on enacting this Trans-Pacific Pact, the TPP, which he says that he intends to use to control the course of commerce in the Pacific Rim region for the foreseeable future...all for the purpose of thwarting Chinese ambitions to do the same. Of course, the first question is why should we be in control of trade in the Pacific region rather than China or any other country, but there is a more important and immediate issue. He was recently quoted as saying, "We are better off writing those rules for what is going to be the largest, fastest-growing market in the world. And if we don't, China will, and other countries will. And our businesses will be disadvantaged, and our workers will ultimately suffer." How? How will our businesses be disadvantaged, and how will that cause our workers to suffer? Those on the left agree that business will be denied an advantage if the TPP isn't negotiated, but they think such a failure would redound to benefit of workers...buy keeping those businesses from exporting their jobs to virtually indentured third world children and disenfranchised adults...rather than causing them to suffer. Why would that be a bad thing? Such exportation of American jobs has been the byproduct of every other trade pact in recent years as business squeezes costs out of labor so as to increase profit and executive compensation in the name of the new supply-side holy Grail, globalization--read holy grail as a euphemism for exploitation--so why should this trade deal be different. Why are working people always the sacrificial lambs when "prosperity"--read prosperity as a euphemism for more money in the hands of the few--is being pursued? And why is that alright with our supposedly-populist president? And there are other areas in which the President seems inclined to favor business demands despite their illogical bases.
Now, for example, the administration has granted a conditional drilling permit to Shell Oil for an area known as the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Arctic Alaska. Drilling in such frigid waters presents problems of its own, but the obstacles to cleaning up spills during such drilling are ominous, making the cleanup of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico a few years ago look like a piece of cake. Environmentalists are in despair over the decision, and it makes the administration's record on environmental issues cloudy and arbitrary, especially in light of the present rise in oil prices and the price of gasoline at the pump. The petroleum industry now professes that there are disincentives to drilling further wells in the Bakken oil fields because of what is tantamount to a glut of American crude oil that is depressing the price of all oil, and hence profits. So what is the impetus for drilling more wells anywhere, much less in a hazardous area like the Arctic Ocean...and this just after opening a large swath of the Atlantic coast of the United States to exploration...all to supply oil companies with the raw materials needed to produce more oil than we need, telling us all the while that because there is too much oil being produced in this country, the price has to rise if we expect them to give us more. It is hard to understand a free market in which shortage produces price increases, and glut does too, so trusting the industry that tells us that such is so seems folly at best, so what are we to think of our president's decision to abet their efforts to line their pockets come what may, and at great environmental risk besides. Let me be clear. I voted for The President twice, and I still think he is far preferable to the Republican alternative offered on those two occasions, but he certainly doesn't seem like the man I voted for, and he doesn't look like the Obama we heard during his campaigns.
Once again, it is the voter who is paying the price for political expediency, and it is the wealthiest of corporations and their executives who, by virtue of their sway over those politicians, stand to profit from the apostasy that gets their shills elected. While President Obama may not be such a shill, he becomes harder to distinguish from them the longer he is in office. Woe is me. Woe is all of us.
Your friend,
Mike
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