Real men, real human beings, with feelings and families, fought and died at Gettysburg to preserve the Union, to ensure, as their president, Abraham Lincoln, would say later, that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Perversely, afterwards, non-humans commandeered the constitutional amendment intended to protect the rights of former slaves. Corporations wrested from the U.S. Supreme Court a decision based on the 14th Amendment asserting that corporations are people with rights to be upheld by the government -- but with no counterbalancing human responsibilities to the republic. No duty to fight or die in war, for example. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court expanded those rights -- ruling that corporations have a First Amendment free speech right to surreptitiously spend unlimited money on political campaigns.
Today, Lincoln would have to say America's got a government of the people by the corporations, for the corporations.
The proposed trade agreement with South Korea illustrates corporate control of government for profit. It's the same with efforts to revive the moribund trade schemes former President George W. Bush also negotiated with Panama and Colombia, the world's most dangerous country by far for trade unionists, with 2,700 assassinated with impunity in the past two decades, 38 slain so far this year.
Nobody likes these trade deals -- except corporations. They're all modeled on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), both of which killed American jobs while giving corporations new authority to sue governments (read: taxpayers) for regulations -- like environmental standards -- that corporations contend interfere with their right to make money.
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the South Korea so-called Free Trade Agreement (FTA) would cost America 159,000 jobs and enlarge its trade deficit by $16.7 billion in its first seven years.
Americans, now suffering though corporate-caused 9.6 percent unemployment, know a deal when they see one -- and the South Korea FTA is not one. In a September poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, 53 percent of Americans said so-called free trade agreements have injured the country. Only 17 percent said those trade schemes benefited the United States. Disgust with these deals spans party lines, including Tea Partiers, 61 percent of whom said they're bad for America.
Many politicians, particularly Democrats, abhor the schemes as well. In July, just after President Obama announced that he would try to get the South Korea pact passed, 110 House Democrats described their disdain for the deal:
"We oppose specific provisions of the agreement in the financial services, investment, and labor chapters, because they benefit multi-national corporations at the expense of small businesses and workers."
Significantly, the South Korean public and some South Korean politicians also oppose the trade proposal. In the week leading up to the G-20 meetings in Seoul, trade unionists, farmers, peasants and students filled the streets in marches and candle light vigils to express outrage with the proposed agreement, including its provisions giving U.S. corporations the right to challenge South Korean laws in private tribunals.
In October, 35 South Korean lawmakers joined 20 U.S. Representatives in writing President Obama and Korean President Lee Myunk-bak to protest the proposal.
Despite all that opposition, when Obama and Lee emerged from talks without an agreement, the American press, pundits and "analysts on both sides of the aisle," described the situation as a major diplomacy failure, "a serious setback for the president."
They were wrong. It wasn't a setback for Obama. It was the president refusing to sign a bad deal for American workers.
It was, however, a humiliation for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which just spent at least $50 million from secret corporate donors to elect Republicans who will do its bidding. The South Korea deal is a priority for the Chamber. Here's what Chamber senior vice president for international affairs Myron Brilliant told the New York Times after the South Korean negotiations broke down and Obama pledged to attempt to complete the deal over the following six weeks:
"This will be an early test for this president with the new Congress, particularly the House leadership."
When Obama went to Seoul, Chamber President Thomas J. Donohue was there to, as he put it, help win the trade deal. He also was among 120 executives given exclusive access to international leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev in a conference before the G-20 meeting.
The international organizers didn't invite to the trade talks or the conference the students, farmers, environmental groups, organized labor and untold millions of individuals who oppose the so-called free trade deals. The human beings who will be hurt most by the trade deals didn't get a seat at the table. The corporate-people who stand to gain everything did.
Brilliant's comments express the corporate sense of entitlement. They spent tens of millions to get what they wanted from politicians to increase profits. Now they expect it to be delivered. It's their recompense, their corporate reward.
If fatter profits mean fewer American jobs and wider trade deficits, that's simply not a problem for corporations. That's among the perks corporations got when the Supreme Court awarded them the privileges of personhood in America but none of the pesky personal and patriotic responsibilities of actual people in American society.
Follow Leo W. Gerard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/uswblogger
And for some suppliers, sticking to their made in the good old USA roots is more important than saving some green.
What ‘Made in the USA’ means
For starters, it’s important for distributors to understand what it means for products to be USA-made. According to the Federal Trade Commission’s Web site, www.ftc.gov, for a product to be deemed worthy of the label, it must be “all or virtually all” made in the U.S. The FTC defines the term “United States” as “the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S, territories and possessions.”
The Web site www.lanhamactlawyer.com further explains the FTC’s standards for made in the USA products, stating that “a product that is at least 97% assembled in the USA from U.S.-made parts” is considered to be U.S.-made. It’s a high bar to clear in an age that has shrunken the global marketplace, making foreign parts a frequent contributor to U.S. goods.
China's currency would not matter so much if people are able to deal in honest, objective value. Mind the currency...but we need to mind our own. Manipulation of currency, which we also actively engage in, is no substitute for competition and productive workforce. It is only legalized theft.
Access to low cost production also reduces barriers to entry into the market for engineers or inventors which would provide benefits unimagined at this point. As an example, I know one inventor who is only bringing his product to the market because he was able to have a mold manufactured in India, and another component part manufactured in China. If tariffs were imposed, this product would not come to market, or at least it wouldn't be an American that introduces it.