Reposted from Economy In Crisis
*******
To the Tea Party: Beware of Free Trade
Nevin Gussack | September 25, 2013 | Economy In Crisis
During the national elections of 2010, a revolution of sorts occurred in the American political landscape. A whole host of citizen candidates entered the race as individuals with conservative and even America First predispositions. They rode a wave of discontent with the increasing centralization of government, runaway spending, and a foreign policy that simultaneously coddled our enemies abroad and engaged in interventions that were not always in America’s best interests. Grassroots groups challenging this status quo included the localized Tea Party, 912 groups, and grassroots conservatives. One foreign and economic policy sacred cow that many localized Tea Party groups challenged was so called “free trade” and the devastation it wrought on communities, our social fabric, tax base, and strategic capabilities to prosecute war under the rubric of industrial self sufficiency.
Karl Marx predicted that free trade would destroy the concept of the nation state and heighten internal social dislocations, thus paving the way for Marxist socialism to triumph. In an 1848 speech called “On Free Trade,” Marx stated:
In general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.
Hence, short sighted free trade is the highway to socialism and the ultimate destruction of the free enterprise system.
The globalists who hijacked both the GOP and Democratic Party subscribe to this “free trade” ideology, and now are worried by grassroots conservative opposition to this destructive doctrine. A Pew Research Center poll for November 4-7, 2010 reported that 63% of professed Tea Party supporters thought that free trade agreements were “bad for U.S.” The Mellman Group and the Alliance for American Manufacturing reported that their poll indicated that 74 percent of self-described Tea Party supporters would support a “national manufacturing strategy to make sure that economic, tax, labor, and trade policies in this country work together to help support manufacturing in the United States.” This poll also revealed that 92% of Tea Party supporters wanted to protect US manufacturing, while 56% supported tariffs on goods from countries with low environmental standards.
Globalist special interests took note of these nationalist feelings within the grassroots conservative movement and sought to co-opt the Tea Party aligned politicians. Christopher Wenk, Senior International Policy Director of the US Chamber of Commerce predicted “We’re going to have our work cut out for us…But we’re going to do aggressive outreach to them across the board. We’re not taking anything for granted. These folks are going to have to hear from the business community and their constituents about why trade is important.”
Several national groups formed or led by Establishment Republicans such as Freedomworks, Tea Party Express, and Americans for Prosperity co-opted the Tea Party label for the purposes of advancing trans-national interests under the rubric of unlimited freedom of action for these same global entities. While their anti-socialist and free market positions are laudable, their open borders positions are deeply disturbing. Vice President for Policy Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity stated that his organization supported all free trade agreements, opposed the House passed Chinese currency re-evaluation bill, and supported the entry of Mexican trucks into the United States as called for in NAFTA. Shockingly, the Institute for Liberty supported the right of an Indonesian company Asia Pulp & Paper to dump their products in the United States, thus undercutting US producers of paper employing Americans. Meanwhile, native Indonesian private enterprises had long been subsidized by their government. Sadly, the Institute for Liberty found itself defending foreign interests as opposed to the well being of their own countrymen in the business world.
Curiously, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has supported free trade to the detriment of his state’s textile industry, PNTR for Red China, and voted no on withdrawing from the sovereignty- destroying WTO.
Despite this record, Senator DeMint is nonetheless beloved by many individuals in the Tea Party and grassroots movement.
American nationalist/conservative candidates who challenge Establishment GOP picks find themselves under intellectual assault, as witnessed in the Davis-Corwin-Hochul Congressional race of 2011. Industrialist Jack Davis mounted a third party challenge under the label Tea Party to the GOP and Democratic candidates under the issue of the damage wrought by free trade and illegal immigration. Not surprisingly, the establishment GOP fronts, such as Tea Party Express and Freedom Works launched a smear campaign to discredit Davis because of his outspoken commitment to national economic interests, as opposed to the special interests that profit from our slow industrial decline.
In conclusion, the Tea Party, 912, and other grassroots conservative activists provide a wonderful patriotic jolt for Americans to realize their valuable national traditions of patriotism, respect for our constitutional republic, and opposition to socialism. However, they must closely follow and then unseat the globalist usurpers on Capitol Hill, who are supported by front groups attempting to co-opt the Tea Party label in order to exploit it for something diametrically opposed to America’s renewed strength. Groups and individuals, such as Americans for Prosperity and Senator DeMint, need to be held accountable for their votes and public positions supporting open borders, the destruction of our industrial base, and trade with countries such as China who plan our downfall as a free and independent nation. In closing, it seems appropriate to make reference to a statement made by Teddy Roosevelt that clearly articulates the battle for the heart and soul of America:
The mere materialist is above all things, short-sighted…To men of a certain kind, trade and property are of far more consequence than the great thoughts and lofty emotions, which alone make a nation mighty.
For clarification, our economic relationship with Communist China is NOT free trade, it is labor arbitrage. According to Paul Craig Roberts, on page 155 of “How The Economy Was Lost,” “The offshoring of American jobs is the antithesis of free trade.” (Roberts expands on this in his new book, “The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism.”)
Communist China is practicing mercantilism, which is also NOT free trade.
Further, on page 155, Roberts says, “The ‘free market’ shills on the payroll of the U.S.Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and in economics departments and think tanks that are recipients of grants from transnational corporations are WHORES (my emphasis) aligned with the elites who are destroying the American work force.”
Many of the American people who try to stay informed have been fed a steady diet of propaganda by the mainstream media, along with erroneous information by “educated” people who haven’t kept up with the changes in the world. What they are calling free trade is NOT free trade. The “elite” journalists, academics, politicians and economists, who have always hated manufacturing, have created a fog that has most Americans confused as to what is happening.
Fifteen years ago, we were bombarded with the meme, “We don’t need manufacturing. We are going to be a service economy.” Many people took that to heart and, (if THEIR job wasn’t outsourced) are wondering what all the fuss is about.
Communist China is a criminal enterprise bent on our destruction. We should NOT be dealing with them at all.
Our only hope is to get Congress to implement Warren Buffett’s 2003 recommendation of “Balanced Trade.” (You can Google it.)
This speech by a former Senator sums up what the Tea Party is all about:
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is ‘‘trillion’’ with a ‘‘T.’’ That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter …
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans—a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies. But we are not doing that…
Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘‘the buck stops here.’’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grand children. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”
This speech was delivered in March of 2006 by a freshman Senator named Barack Obama. It’s a pity that we don’t have people like this leading the Senate now.
Classic.
Debt and deficits are only a symptom of the much larger crisis of jobs offshoring due to free trade policies. This has permanently offshored America’s manufacturing engines of wealth-creation, exporting our GDP, tax base, jobs and industrial capabilities needed for prosperity in the long term. The fact that Congress is fighting over deficits and health insurance while ignoring the hole in the bottom of the economy shows we have no leadership in this country. Both parties should apologize to the nation and permanently disband, and their politicians should resign en masse. Of course there is no one to replace them, there is virtually zero understanding of the need to balance our trade and reshore our manufacturing, a fundamental requirement that has been ignored not just in Washington but by the mainstream media, all of whom prefer to concentrate on culture war and bickering about the fiscal results of the “free trade” they’ve all accepted as unchallengeable.
One more thing, Bruce. “Communist China” has a government that, whatever they do contrary to our own ideas of proper policy, is actually doing more for the economic prosperity of their people than the US government is doing for ours. At least China has an economic strategy that is working to bring manufacturing and technological development to their land. China has brought many tens of millions of their own people out of poverty in the last few decades. The problems of growing poverty and unemployment in the USA are not to be blamed on the Chinese, whose policies are their own sovereign right to make. Responsibility for American problems belong ultimately in Washington DC, where the free trade policies are made that have bled our manufacturing and ability to create wealth.
Will,
I agree with what you have said about China. Of course, you could make the same argument for the Gambino crime family.
China is NOT to blame for our problems. Our government is to blame for our problems.
As a “citizen of the world,” I would be willing to accept a lower standard of living if I believed that the people of China would enjoy a commensurate improvement in their standard of living. I do not believe that this is the case. As evidence, I would point to the “suicide nets” installed under the windows of the Foxconn worker dorms.
I have not forgotten Tiananmen Square, ’89. Communist China is a dictatorship. They have accepted the fact that capitalism is the ONLY way to generate the wealth they need to become a super-power. They have also accepted the fact that for capitalism to work, they must allow entrepreneurs to become wealthy. What they don’t accept, and can’t accept is freedom. When the time comes, they will round up the dissidents and kill them. When the time comes, they will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. They can’t help it. That is who they are.
The free market only works if people are free.