Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Despite recent donk posturing on bilateral trade agreements -- see below -- we all know the party core is really the sob-sister half of a bipartisan mission to make the globe safe for trans-nat investments. Not only are they not raging against the overvalued dollar -- they're not even making a peep over a remarkably odious proviso in these agreements, as pointed out in this recent tompaine.com broadside (Tom Paine, alas, is no relation of mine). It's authored by a well-meaning Beltway anti-corporate prog type:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/05/04/missing_words_for_the_new_trade_debate.php

The gist: Uncle Sam is "bilaterally" levering emerging nations' legal systems, as much as their markets, into better vehicles for TNC penetration. Example: in these draft agreements, transnat "investors" gain the right to sue host countries, right there in the host's own civil justice system, for "damages" that result from said host gubmint's changes of laws and regulations. You might call it the criminalization of sovereignty.

Needless to say, it's all in the fine print and hardly new -- check out NAFTA. Which brings me to my quote of the day, from Mighty Joe Stiglitz, economist extra-ordinaire -- who sheepishly admits he bit into the NAFTA quick shuffle himself, while still a Clinton econ-con staff egghead:

It was only after it passed (NAFTA)that the potential consequences of this agreement became clear. Chapter 11 included a regulatory takings provision that allowed investors to sue states, with damages paid by the national governments.... If the United States signed on to an agreement without knowing what it was agreeing to, what did this say about other countries?

Now Joe, is that really fair? Do you really think the real-deal guys from Uncle didn't know what was up? Isn't it a lot more likely that Uncle's boys just pulled the old "you can trust Great White Father" act?

And after all, who can fault them for treating with these fritter-sized emergers this way? It's at least as even-steven as Uncle's agents in bygone days treated with his own little native red brothers.

Here's the house Dems' "new trade policy" manifesto, in bullet points:

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/NewTradePolicy.pdf

Remember the three little pigs and their anti-wolf houses? This is the one built of straw.