Isn’t it ironic that pro-business conservative Republican Jack Metcalf was smart enough to see the inherent dangers to workers, farmers and the environment in the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization and vote against them in the House of Representatives?
Meanwhile, the “new” Democrat, Rick Larsen, who took Metcalf’s seat promising to stand with workers, farmers and protect our environment, registered a key vote in the recent “Midsummer Night’s Massacre.” He backed a Republican president in a 215-212 vote by giving him massive new powers to negotiate trade agreements according to his anti-worker, anti-environmental values.
Certainly we should keep Larsen’s vote in mind when we see the expansion of the Chapter 11 provision that allows corporations to sue us when our laws hurt their profits. When we see enforcement of basic labor rights such as the right of free association, the right to organize, freedom from slavery and freedom from discrimination being gutted. Expansion of “trade in services” provisions that encourage privatization and allow challenges against our environmental, public health and labor laws when corporations find them “more burdensome than necessary”. A TAA (Trade Adjustment Assistance) package sufficiently watered-down so that laid off workers will have a hard time qualifying for aid, and an expansion of NAFTA/WTO style tribunals that second-guess democratically-enacted laws behind closed doors.
Indeed, it is unfortunate that when so many voters in Washington state’s Second Congressional District were looking to our freshman representative to exhibit a profile in courage in an age of corporate expediency, we find ourselves so sadly betrayed by a practitioner of “politics as usual.”
Everett
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