Another Bush Bust

Another folly from the glorious leader: free trade in South America is not going to happen.

http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-2/564/564_00_FTAA.shtml

I think I’ll wait till the obituary of FTAA is posted somewhere other than by a leftist organization that has a vested interest in the failure of Free Trade Area of the Americas.

But you should get a bright shiny silver star for trying nonetheless.

[quote]rainjack wrote:
I think I’ll wait till the obituary of FTAA is posted somewhere other than by a leftist organization that has a vested interest in the failure of Free Trade Area of the Americas.

But you should get a bright shiny silver star for trying nonetheless. [/quote]

That’s cute. Do I get a smily face too?

You guys post the articles you think are true. That’s fine. I’ll post mine.

But either way, the demonstrations were there, it was all over the papers over the weekend. And the leaders of many South American countries are both leftist (because of our pass indiscretions there) and anti-Bush. So I don’t see it passing.

“To keep its trade initiative alive, the U.S. has been pushing a free trade area in the Andes, but the effort was set back earlier this when a key Washington ally, Ecuador?s President Lucio Gutierrez was driven from office in a popular rebellion”.

It aint lookin bright RJ.

Socialist Worker Online.

Wow.

[quote]doogie wrote:
Socialist Worker Online.

Wow.[/quote]

Hey, just as biased as FoxNews

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
It aint lookin bright RJ. [/quote]

if my memory serves me correctly - all of the free trade agreements have been met with opposition. In fact - wasn’t NAFTA started by Bush I, and not passed until Clinton was in office? I’m going off memory, so I could be very wrong.

I am in limited support of the free trade agreements. Coming from an agricultural point of view - it has been very difficult on our farmers and ranchers to compete on the international stage when our own government has them by the short hairs.

I’d still prefer to wait on hearing the death announcement from a more reputable source before I put on my funeral suit.

[quote]harris447 wrote:
doogie wrote:
Socialist Worker Online.

Wow.

Hey, just as biased as FoxNews[/quote]

While Fox News certainly leans to the right, your comment is idiotic.

[quote]harris447 wrote:
Hey, just as biased as FoxNews[/quote]

Please list proof of Fox News’ bias. I think this issue has been brought up before - but no one could find where the news reporting was biased.

I know that is asking a lot from someone that is much more comfortable just talking shit than they are actually backing it up, but this isn’t the first time you have said this.

Back it up.

Fox News is run by whom? Not Murdoch…who has day-to-day control of the message?

Roger Ailes.

Who used to be whose hatchetman?

[quote]harris447 wrote:
Fox News is run by whom? Not Murdoch…who has day-to-day control of the message?

Roger Ailes.

Who used to be whose hatchetman?[/quote]

Is that what you pass off as proof? Connect the dots?

I’m sorry, but that is not proof. I agree that the commentary by some of the talk-shows are conservative. That is why Fox dwarfs all of the other cable news outlets.

If that is what you are referring to - fine. But there is a difference in the opinion shows and news. Fox is as good, or as bad as the rest of the MSM when it comes to reporting on the events of the day.

[quote]rainjack wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
It aint lookin bright RJ.

if my memory serves me correctly - all of the free trade agreements have been met with opposition. In fact - wasn’t NAFTA started by Bush I, and not passed until Clinton was in office? I’m going off memory, so I could be very wrong.

I am in limited support of the free trade agreements. Coming from an agricultural point of view - it has been very difficult on our farmers and ranchers to compete on the international stage when our own government has them by the short hairs.

I’d still prefer to wait on hearing the death announcement from a more reputable source before I put on my funeral suit.

[/quote]

I don’t recall whether it was George I or Clinton that started it, but ut was passed during Clinton’s years. They have all been met with opposition, but not with so many countries going against it, and certainly not with a vocal opponent like Chavez.

As for the credibility of the article, it puts a different spin on America’s actions. Because it is a socialist newsletter does not mean that it is not credible. On the internet, nothing is “credible” aside from the News websites.

Of course, in my opinion, the news sites are biased also. They are owned by massive corporations with a huuuggeee stake in what goes on in the country. All these companies are owned by the big 4 (Disney, Viacomm, and the other two escape me now). They filter all that we see, hear, and understand.

Why limit yourself to their point of view?

Fox doesn’t have more viewers:

Specific examples:

http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/specificbias.htm

More:

Yeah - and I can bend numbers or take other criteria and show that the Patriots actually lost in the Super Bowl last year.

Please…I asked you for proof of Fox’s bias - not proof that CNN is more popular than Fox is if you skew the numbers the right way.

I’m still waiting.

[quote]rainjack wrote:
Yeah - and I can bend numbers or take other criteria and show that the Patriots actually lost in the Super Bowl last year.

Please…I asked you for proof of Fox’s bias - not proof that CNN is more popular than Fox is if you skew the numbers the right way.

I’m still waiting. [/quote]

We’ve been through that particular issue before with you and others. It led to you claiming that “news shows” aren’t news as if people aren’t basing opinions on what they hear in “news shows”. I personally think that view is retarded. Of course people are listening to Hannity and Colmes and believing it is news. You would have to be blind to think otherwise.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
We’ve been through that particular issue before with you and others. It led to you claiming that “news shows” aren’t news as if people aren’t basing opinions on what they hear in “news shows”. I personally think that view is retarded. Of course people are listening to Hannity and Colmes and believing it is news. You would have to be blind to think otherwise.[/quote]

Basing opinions on what you hear Hannity, or Rush, or O’Riley, or anyone else opine over is a far cry from getting the news. I know the difference. I am sure that you do to.

But the argument here is about bias in mews reporting. And no one has chime up with any proof to support the charge.

Well either way we’ll have to see. I hope the free trade agreement goes through and starts a trend of free trade agreements

Hmmm…free trade means that the best product, the best service wins. Are the Lefties on here against that? Very revealing.

FTAA is largely dead, and was so before Bush’ arrival. Farm subsidies are a huge issue with global trade. The U.S. and EU are having a similar debate, except in that case the U.S. is looking for the EU to trim their subsidies, whereas Mercosur is unwilling to work on FTAA until America does something with it’s subsidies.

Doesn’t help that Chavez is buying support with his oil windfalls. His Castro-lite BS isn’t really taken seriously by other Latin American leaders, but he’s still a big 'ole fly in the ointment. A Venezuelan coup would be great.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Hmmm…free trade means that the best product, the best service wins. Are the Lefties on here against that? Very revealing.[/quote]

CAFTA. That’s NAFTA with a C.

NAFTA was so great, people are violently rioting to oppose CAFTA… there’s your first clue.

The Boys in Brazil
November 8, 2005; Page A16

No doubt it was more fun this weekend for the press corps to cover flag-burning, window-smashing anti-American protesters in Che Guevarra T-shirts than to write about progress in slow and often tedious global trade negotiations. Street theater always sells better than policy. But the latter is the real news from President Bush’s trip to the Southern Cone, and it’s infinitely more important to the future of 500 million Latin Americans.

Most reports cast the fourth Summit of the Americas as a showdown between Mr. Bush and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Ch?vez. To read some of the accounts, you’d think the Ch?vez vision provided a serious alternative to the continuing expansion of free trade and global competition, and to the prosperity that has come with them. Give the Castro acolyte some credit for media savvy and sound bites – which is what you have to fall back on when you lose on substance.

And lose Se?or Ch?vez did, because the real action this weekend didn’t take place at the summit in Argentina but a day later on the American President’s visit to Brazil. Mr. Bush and Brazilian President Lula da Silva went a long way toward agreeing on a common strategy to reduce farm subsidies that just might salvage the Doha round of global trade-opening.

“Your president has criticized the agricultural subsidies that the developed world pays to its farmers – trade-distorting subsidies that undercut honest farmers in the developing world,” Mr. Bush said in a speech in Brasilia. “I agree with President Lula.” As Brazil’s ambassador to the U.S. told us, “The visit was very constructive, and that fact was really apparent in the Brazilian press.”

And no wonder, because Brazilian farmers have been pushing for decades to compete on a level global playing field. Reducing farm subsidies was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Doha round, which started four years ago this month. But the talks have since run into trouble, largely over farm issues. The U.S., Europe and Japan have resisted liberalizing their farm markets, while Brazil and its allies in the so-called G-20 have refused to move on other market areas (services and manufactured goods) until they see more progress on agriculture.

Several weeks ago, Mr. Bush tried to jump start the Doha talks by proposing large immediate reductions in U.S. “agricultural tariffs and trade-distorting subsidies,” and total elimination over 15 years – if other nations do the same. That tossed the ball over to the European Union, which is divided on the subject but has so far resisted similar reductions largely due to opposition from France. Unless the U.S. and the developing world can present a united front on behalf of freer trade, the French will never budge.

The U.S. has agreed with the developing nations’ G-20 that only 1% of a country’s agricultural products would qualify as “sensitive” products that receive protection. By contrast, the EU wants 8% to be excluded from trade liberalization, and the so-called G-10 – including Israel, Iceland, Japan, Switzerland and Norway – want 15%. The next time you hear some Nordic moralist deplore American attitudes to the Third World, just ask about farm tariffs.

It’s true Mr. Bush made less progress on a Free Trade Agreement for the Americas, but Doha is the far bigger prize. The U.S. has already struck “bilateral” trade accords with Chile, with the nations of Central America, and of course with Mexico (Nafta). Other Latin countries can pursue similar deals if they want, just as they can liberalize their own economies without American prodding. Too many countries have used the future promise of a larger FTAA as an excuse not to do anything in the interim.

All of which makes the Lula-Bush entente even more significant. President Lula may be a recovering leftist, but he has governed as a pragmatist and he understands that Brazil’s national interest lies in being part of the global economic system. The U.S. also has a stake in liberalizing trade around the world, and especially in Latin America, where protectionist policies have prevented the growth that has done so much to ease poverty in Asia. You might even call all of this an example of “multilateral” U.S. trade diplomacy designed to counter the “unilateral” French.

Sooner or later, the press pack will figure out what happened in Brazil, and might even report it. Meantime, we thought our readers would like to hear the good news.