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Is anyone else almost impressed with how good Congress seems to be at talking any sort of actual citizen-friendly bills to death while miraculously coordinating

Is anyone else almost impressed with how good Congress seems to be at talking any sort of actual citizen-friendly bills to death while miraculously coordinating itself to pass terrible laws that protect them with bipartisan support? If it wasn't so sad, I'd be impressed.

shoo 12y ago
I've just finished reading Chomsky's "How the World Works". I'll quote a relevant section about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The behaviour, in my opinion, seems roughly consistent with what we are seeing now: In 1974, the Trade Act was passed by Congress. One of its provisions was that the Labor Advisory Committee -- which is based in the unions -- had to have input and analysis on any trade-related issue. Obviously that committee had to report on NAFTA, which was an executive agreement signed by the president. The Labor Advisory Committee was notified in mid-August 1992 that their report was due on September 8, 1992. However, they weren't given a text of the agreement until about 24 hours before the report was due. That meant they couldn't even convene, and they obviously couldn't write a serious report in time. Now these are conservative labor leaders, not the kind of guys who criticize the government much. But they wrote a very acid report. They said that, to the extent that we can look at this in the few hours given to us, it looks like it's going to be a disaster for working people, for the environment, for Mexicans -- and a great boon for investors. The committee pointed out that although treaty advocates said it won't hurt many American workers, maybe just unskilled workers, their definition of "unskilled worker" would include 70% of the workforce. The committee also pointed out that property rights were being protected all over the place, but workers' rights were scarcely mentioned. The committee then bitterly condemned the utter contempt for democracy that was demonstrated by not giving the committee the complete text ahead of time. On a related note, if anyone is interested in reading more about the Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions of these "Free Trade" agreements, there's an interesting perspective from Chief Justice RS French, from the High Court of Australia: http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/current-justices/frenchcj/frenchcj09jul14.pdf http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/curren...
Lawtonfogle 12y ago
Remember the saying to not blame on malice what is explained by stupidity? Their organization when it is to their benefit casts strong doubts on the use of stupidity as a satisfactory explanation.

shoo 12y ago

I've just finished reading Chomsky's "How the World Works". I'll quote a relevant section about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The behaviour, in my opinion, seems roughly consistent with what we are seeing now: In 1974, the Trade Act was passed by Congress. One of its provisions was that the Labor Advisory Committee -- which is based in the unions -- had to have input and analysis on any trade-related issue. Obviously that committee had to report on NAFTA, which was an executive agreement signed by the president. The Labor Advisory Committee was notified in mid-August 1992 that their report was due on September 8, 1992. However, they weren't given a text of the agreement until about 24 hours before the report was due. That meant they couldn't even convene, and they obviously couldn't write a serious report in time. Now these are conservative labor leaders, not the kind of guys who criticize the government much. But they wrote a very acid report. They said that, to the extent that we can look at this in the few hours given to us, it looks like it's going to be a disaster for working people, for the environment, for Mexicans -- and a great boon for investors. The committee pointed out that although treaty advocates said it won't hurt many American workers, maybe just unskilled workers, their definition of "unskilled worker" would include 70% of the workforce. The committee also pointed out that property rights were being protected all over the place, but workers' rights were scarcely mentioned. The committee then bitterly condemned the utter contempt for democracy that was demonstrated by not giving the committee the complete text ahead of time. On a related note, if anyone is interested in reading more about the Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions of these "Free Trade" agreements, there's an interesting perspective from Chief Justice RS French, from the High Court of Australia: http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/current-justices/frenchcj/frenchcj09jul14.pdf http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/curren...

Lawtonfogle 12y ago

Remember the saying to not blame on malice what is explained by stupidity? Their organization when it is to their benefit casts strong doubts on the use of stupidity as a satisfactory explanation.