The Offshoring of Hope: Obama Now Misleads Voters About NAFTA Expansion

Following his announcement yesterday that he will be supporting Wall Street's push to expand NAFTA into Peru, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has embarked on a campaign of misdirection - ironically (or perhaps, predictably) similar to the original campaign of deception that marked the original debate over NAFTA.

Here is just one example of the deception. It would be a conspiracy if the facts debunking his rhetoric wasn't so out in the open and public for all to see.

CLAIM:

"The Peruvian agreement contains the very labor agreements that labor and our allies have been asking for." - Barack Obama, 10/10/07

FACT:

Not a single American labor union has endorsed the Peru trade pact, which extends NAFTA into Peru. While the AFL-CIO has said that some language in the deal is better than old trade pacts, the AFL-CIO is nonetheless against the deal because it extends the overall NAFTA model. The Hill newspaper just a few weeks ago once again confirmed that "The AFL-CIO is not supporting [the Peru] deal." In fact, almost every single labor, human rights, religious, environmental, anti-poverty and consumer advocacy organization has come out against the Peru pact - and that includes those organizations both in the United States and in Peru. For more on that opposition and on how this Peru deal is a 99% mirror of NAFTA, see here, here, here and here. Additionally, please recall that the Chamber of Commerce has already confirmed it has been given confirmation by the Bush administration that the watered down labor language in this NAFTA expansion is unenforceable.

P.S. To the Obama partisans who refuse to acknowledge these basic facts out of a blind sense of Partisan War Syndrome, go ahead -- fill up the comments with your excuses, your misdirections, your justifications and your absurdly dishonest claims that I am working for another candidate, or that I am a "supporter" of another candidate (the horror! the horror!). I'm not picking on Obama -- rest assured I'll have more to say on all candidates as we learn more about where they stand on the NAFTA expansion. Go ahead - waste the bandwith to make yourselves feel better, call me a liar even with all the facts, hyperlinks and data lined up against you. But huff and puff all you want -- these are the facts, and these are the reasons why the rank-and-file Democrats in Congress like Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Phil Hare (from Obama's own state) are working hard to defeat this NAFTA expansion.

Comments

[Desiderata]

Obama is a political Mahareshi Yogi. And, as a previous blog on Huffpo today noted, he voted the wishes of his Wall Street backers to allow BigCredit to exceed 30% interest charges on creditcards. You can bet, he ain't paying that.

Wall Street owns Obama.

[beef33]

Yeah news flash. Obama takes K street money, so does corporate shillary. So they will be for NAFTA CAFTA whatever comes down the line. It is as simple as that. Slick talkers just helping out their rich pals. Edwards takes no k street money only 7 mill in contributions but from wide range of people. Out of iraq, raise taxes on the wealthy,single payer, Edwards 08 the time has come.

[fact finder]

One more time all politicians float in the same cess pool. so don't be shocked.

[altohone]

The straw man argument that all Obama supporters are ignoring facts doesn't hold water. Generalizations like that are a well-worn tactic using statements from a handful of uninformed to paint the whole group in a bad light.

His position on trade is understood, and the argument for pandering to unions with empty campaign promises by DLC'ers like Hillary and Edwards ignores their records by HOPING their past actions won't be indicative of future stances.

Obama and Kucinch are the only candidates with a record that matches their rhetoric, but the reality is that in a three-way race, Obama's positions are far more preferable and realistic than those of his leading opponents.

Obama isn't Kucinch, but if that's the standard you want to hold candidates to, Hillary and Edwards fair worse in a comparison.

[unemployedprogressive]

As far as "Think Big" goes you should check your facts about the Turkey situation. All of the estimates that I have heard are above 1 million dead.

As far as any national politician supporting NAFTA, CAFTA etc., you need to remember that our elections are financed by big corporate interests. Until we have publicly financed elections you should expect all serious candidates to kow tow to the special interests that have the money.

[thinkbig]

My bad. Just amplify the absurdity of Bush not wanting to denounce the genocide by a factor of 10x.

[JimR]

Is it worth offending one of our few remaining allies, whose air space we use to resupply our troops in Iraq? They've already pulled their ambassador, and have promised consequences if the House passes the resolution. They are also contemplating invading Iraq to pursue Kurdish militants, which would greatly complicate the situation over there.

It was a horrific thing, don't get me wrong. But it was more than 80 years ago. The Ottoman Empire is no more, and a House resolution will accomplish little besides making some representatives feel all warm and fuzzy.

Here's a crazy thought—what if they spent most of their time thinking of ways they can get us out of Iraq?

Or do they plan on waiting another 80 years or so to address that?

[AdamC]

Honestly im not sure why anyone is surprised by this. It has been pretty clear (at least to me) that Obama is a media created phenomenon. Everyone was TOLD how exciting he is, how new, how HOPEFUL. Frankly i find him to be full of generalisations, platitudes and empty talk with little to no real spine or willingness to act on democratic ideals. he is a great pitchman nd well sold. he should be pitchin for Coke or Phizer (oh wait... he is!)

When i look at th "frontrunners" (funny phase in a cycle that has seen no voting to date) I see no Pride in who the Democratic Party is was or could be from him or any other candidate except for Dennis Kucinich.

Obama consistantly delivers a message that could have been crafted in a marketing meeting at Nike (who i bet would love to put a swoosh on his forehead but that would be to obvious, no?). His messages are deviod of specifics or substance, designed to not offend while at the same time serving the true interests of those who pay for service.

we should have a real government that is "of the people, by the people, for the people". no where does it say "Of, For or By" Corporatio­ns...

But according to the narative of the MSM, Dennis Kucinich is too short to be taken seriously, although he seems to be the only one who gets what we need. the only cure for this is to remove corporations from the process of governing people.

Public financing of elections is the only answer i can see to getting us back to our roots of being a nation of people rather than consumers and those who market to us. Thats fine for soft drinks, but not for our national conversation about governence.

This is critical since corporations by structure and tradition only care about one thing. Profits. and the political favors that thier profit driven donations can buy.

The only Audacity I see here is the Audacity of Corporate money in politics.

[SeanGardner]

"His messages are deviod of specifics or substance, designed to not offend while at the same time serving the true interests of those who pay for service"..­.

Not true. If you read this article you'd know better: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2007-08-29-obama-backers_N.htm

Obama '08

[beef33]

you are bypassing edwards who takes NO k street money. He can win some southern states also. Kucinich would be in the cabinet. I like it when you "generalizations, platitudes and empty talk". Ain't that the truth

[JimR]

From the New York Times:

"Mr. Rangel traveled to Peru in August to win assurances from the Peruvian leadership that they would fully carry out the labor and environmental clauses of the trade deal, which were written in cooperation with the A.F.L.-C.I­.O."

Is that true, that the A.F.L.-C.I­.O. helped write the clauses?

If that is true, and Peru agreed to those clauses, then what Obama said is correct, isn't it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/washington/26trade.html

[mommadona]

"The Peruvian agreement contains the very labor agreements that labor and our allies have been asking for." - Barack Obama, 10/10/07

I cannot believe he said that.
Well, nice try, Barack.
We just aren't into anymore DLC-types.
Try again, once you get a grip on reality.
PS: Get out of that bubble more.

[thinkbig]

You shouldn't be so shocked this place is partisan. If Obama had a pair he would reject NAFTA and use it to get union support and even maybe peel off a few republican protectionist votes. No chance of that. In other news, why no reporting on here of Bush not wanting a genocide resolution against Turkey? They'll pass resolutions against MoveOn but not against 100k dead? That should be hung around their necks too.