“The only trade agreements I believe in are ones that put workers first – because trade deals aren’t good for the American people if they aren’t good for working people. That’s why I opposed CAFTA. That’s why I oppose the South Korea Free Trade Agreement." - Barack Obama on the campaign trail, 11/13/2007Which makes me think of the scariest prospect at all. Not only is he a liar/politician, but that he knows exactly what he's doing now and I'm the one who's kidding himself. That this is a long program of billclintonian triangulation to establish himself in the new center and for the Repigs to hurl themselves off the right edge of the Earth just in time for 2012.
Three years later, Obama is taking bows for that very same South Korea Free Trade Agreement, negotiated by George Bush in 2007. He made a couple of changes that could potentially net the automakers a few hundred more jobs — but got no guarantees, and at the cost of hundreds of thousands of jobs. And all the things he said he opposed in the deal, that were bad for American workers and the environment, like limiting our ability to regulate banks and forcing American taxpayers to submit to judgments made by World Bank [and IMF - mr] and UN tribunals? He didn’t touch those.
Thoughts very much influenced by this from Laurence Lewis at Daily Kos: "President Obama is neither weak nor stupid... nor a progressive"
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