It's called the Wal-Marting of America. Bush's plan is to poison us all.
Posted by Mal Feasance at July 12, 2007 06:49 PMThis is one of my favorite blog posts of the year so far. My father worked in textiles his entire life, and he saw his industry become systematically sold out and undercut. He lobbied Congress and they told him we had to give up textiles for the sake of world peace, because it's unskilled labor that could be easily picked up by developing nations. This was 1979. And the environmental standards for mills in China are so execrable that they are literally poisoning the water with their waste and runoff.
The fallback argument is always that "people won't go for it because they'd have to pay higher prices," yet if they jobs came back they could afford them. Fear as a political weapon should be used sparingly, but I think "stop unfettered free trade or you'll be dead by drowning or eating anti-freeze" is a rough, but not a bad, slogan.
Posted by dday at July 12, 2007 07:17 PMMy personal favorite contradiction on this issue is how Canadian prescription drugs could be dangerous, so we shouldn't be able to buy more affordable prescription medicine from Canada.
Yet, if you take a look at most OTC drugs, you'll see they are all manufactured in....Canada. I wonder why....could it be that the companies don't have to pay their employees' health care and therefore it's more affordable to run a business there? And how is the FDA able to ensure the safety of Canadian-produced OTC drugs but can't possibly ensure that prescription drugs made in Canada are safe?
That execution was what they call a DEMONSTRATION Trial, now whether the Chinese do more than a brutal PR campaign is open to question, I'd say that guy paid the price as much for getting caught as anything.
While I like your Title, that would still require the Democrats to pound home that message and DEMONSTRATE their values through actions, linking their rhetoric to actions that either pass, or get filibustered by the GOP. And that's where the problems occur.
Co-dependent Ben Nelson, or enabler Landrieu get their shorts all wet because those 8 percenters will include a corrupt media and they'll say mean things about the Senators in question, and they'll crumble like a piece of rice paper in a tornado.
Otherwise, it's a fine idea, I just long for the day when these guys really get fed up and just go balls to the wall in opposition to the right wing lunacy governing, GOVERNING FER CHRISSAKES, this country.
Posted by Duckman GR at July 12, 2007 09:39 PMSteve, great post!
“Well, it doesn’t matter what we do to reduce emissions because China and India will simply create more greenhouse gasses than we reduce.” Again, I asked him if he was arguing for doing nothing while the planet died, and he had no answer.
This is absolutely the right way to discuss this issue. If someone is at all in touch with reality, they will know they personally are abetting in the murder of the planet if they don't do something.
The other linkage is in the farm bill: agriculture, water, energy, environment, and even our health - they are all tied together. Healthy farm policies will get us off the petroleum based, water wasteful policies we are using -- and better food, better policies actually promote better health. Our world and the problems affecting the world are so tied together - we need to start addressing them holistically.
Posted by Mary at July 12, 2007 11:26 PMI like the idea of COOL I just don't like the having COOL lumped in with something that I don't like, such as the National Animal Identification Act.
http://nonais.org/index.php/2007/06/12/new-farm-bill-to-implement-nais/
..."FARM BILL PROVISION ON NAIS: The House Committee on Agriculture is continuing to work on the Farm Bill throughout the month of June. Section 121 of the current draft would allow the USDA to use a mandatory animal identification system in order to implement Country of Origin Labeling (“COOL”). Current law prohibits mandatory NAIS for COOL, and this is a move in the WRONG direction! Read Randy Givens’ article about the dangers of linking COOL with NAIS"...
Posted by Jolly Sapper at July 13, 2007 08:38 AM