{"id":74745,"date":"2016-06-06T12:20:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T11:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=74745"},"modified":"2016-06-06T12:20:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T11:20:17","slug":"obama-tries-to-ram-his-ttip-down-europeans-throats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/06\/obama-tries-to-ram-his-ttip-down-europeans-throats\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Tries to Ram His TTIP Down Europeans\u2019 Throats"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"foie<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Jun 2016 – <\/em>Like the foie gras producer ramming food down ducks\u2019 throats in order to create diseased super-fatty livers that some humans find acceptable to eat, Barack Obama (via his friend and trade-negotiator Michael Froman) is trying\u00a0to ram dictatorship down Europeans\u2019 throats, for the benefit of billionaires<\/a>. And, like the sweet words of the foie-grass lobbyists who say it\u2019s all just the \u2018free market\u2019 at work, Obama\u2019s commercial-treaties salesman is saying it\u2019s all being done in order to support \u2018free trade\u2019.<\/p>\n

Thus, on May 31st, a big promoter of \u2018free trade\u2019, Britain\u2019s Economist<\/em>, headlined\u00a0\u201cEurope and US in race to keep TTIP on track\u201d<\/a>,\u00a0and \u2018reported\u2019 (i.e., stenographically transmitted) the U.S. President\u2019s propaganda; they provided to Mr. Froman their (unjustifiably respected) platform, as an unpaid ad (\u2018news\u2019 story) for the Obama Administration\u2019s work-product, this treaty: \u201cSpeaking in Stockholm on a European tour to push TTIP, Michael Froman, US President Barack Obama\u2019s trade tsar, warned that there was no \u2018Plan B\u2019 if talks were not concluded this year. \u2018We either work together to help set the rules of the world or we leave that role to others.\u2019\u201d In other words: Obama, via Froman, via this freebie publicity provided by the Economist<\/em>, is telling the Economist\u2019s readers, that the way to advance free trade is by imposing the rules that govern it, so as to supply advantage to the people who impose the rules and sign Obama\u2019s document, and so as thereby to disadvantage everybody else \u2014 all people who are outside the blessed self-selected closed circle of power-holders.<\/p>\n

Naturally, being good propagandists, the Economist<\/em> provides no real counter-argument to that (such as by pointing out that Obama is actually trying to replace \u201cthe rules of the world\u201d that have already become established during decades by the far less partial World Trade Organization or WTO<\/a> \u2014 replace those global rules by the discriminatory treaty-based trading-blocs rules that he wants in order for international corporations to be placed directly into the driver\u2019s seat<\/a>), but instead the Economist<\/em> continues immediately with this caricature of such:<\/p>\n

TTIP\u2019s supporters have also been blindsided by increasing opposition to trade deals in the US, where Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has built his campaign around an antitrade message and Democrat Hillary Clinton, facing a challenge from the left, has abandoned\u00a0her support for a similar Pacific trade pact.<\/em><\/p>\n

In other words, according to the Economist:<\/em> the domestic opposition to Obama\u2019s trade-deals is comprised of two categories: of \u2018antitrade\u2019 populists, and of leftist yahoos who don\u2019t know that Marxism is dead and ended ever since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 \u2014 both categories of yahoos are simply behind-the-times, according to the Economist<\/em>. Pity those non<\/em>-subscribers to mega-corporate propaganda such as this.<\/p>\n

Then, this\u00a0Economist<\/em> \u2018news\u2019 \u2018report\u2019 (a.k.a.: propaganda) continues:<\/p>\n

With the clock running out on Mr Obama\u2019s presidency, officials on both sides now believe that the window is closing for a deal to be reached and approved in legislatures in Europe and the US before the end of the year. EU officials stress that they want to agree a working text by\u00a0July.<\/em><\/p>\n

A failure to complete the agreement before a change in US administration could condemn the pact to years of drift.<\/em><\/p>\n

Get it done now, is the propaganda message. But, the intelligent reader will still be asking: should it be done at all? Viewed in narrowly economic terms alone,\u00a0the three independently done (as opposed to mega-corporate funded) studies indicate that the major stockholders in international corporations (especially ones that are based in the U.S.) would benefit from these deals, at the expense of everyone else and especially at the expense of consumers, and of employees<\/a>. However, that\u2019s only the economics of it. More broadly, what Obama\u2019s treaties will do if they become passed into law is\u00a0to achieve internationally the dream of fascists ever since the time of Mussolini: to transfer sovereignty away from the public in a democracy, to, instead, as Mussolini himself sometimes called his fascist ideology, \u201ccorporationism,\u201d which he defined as:<\/a><\/p>\n

The corporation plays on the economic terrain just as the Grand Council and the militia play on the political terrain. Corporationism is disciplined economy,\u00a0and from that comes control, because one cannot imagine a discipline without a director.\u00a0Corporationism is above socialism and above liberalism. A new synthesis is created.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Earlier, he had said (and even legislated), tellingly:<\/a><\/p>\n

Labor in all forms, intellectual, technical and manual, is a social duty. In this sense, and in this sense only, is it protected by the State. From the national point\u00a0of view all production is a unit; its objects are unitary and can be defined as the wellbeing of the producers and the development of national strength.<\/em><\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t mention there \u201cthe wellbeing of the workers,\u201d nor \u201cthe wellbeing of consumers,\u201d because his ideology wasn\u2019t concerned about those matters. He even asserted that labor \u201cis a social duty. In this sense, and in this sense only, is it protected by the State,\u201d so that workers\u2019 rights<\/em> have no protection in fascism. Only workers\u2019 duties<\/em> do. \u201cNational strength\u201d was his goal, just as it is Barack Obama\u2019s, and they don\u2019t believe that workers\u2019 rights are part of this. That\u2019s why it\u2019s ignored in Obama\u2019s proposed treaties.<\/p>\n

\u201cNational strength\u201d is, of course, largely a military phenomenon. Here is Obama speaking on 28 May 2014 to graduating cadets<\/a> at America\u2019s academy for its future military leaders, West Point:<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in\u00a0Europe, while China\u2019s economic rise and military reach worries its\u00a0neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us,\u00a0and governments seek a greater say in global forums. And even as\u00a0developing nations embrace democracy and market economies, 24-hour news\u00a0and social media makes it impossible to ignore the\u00a0continuation of\u00a0sectarian conflicts and failing states and popular uprisings that might\u00a0have received only passing notice a generation ago.\u00a0It will be your generation\u2019s task to respond to this new world.\u00a0\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

America must always lead on the world stage. If we don\u2019t, no one else\u00a0will. The military that you have joined is and always will be the\u00a0backbone of that leadership.<\/em><\/p>\n

This was a statement that America\u2019s economic competitors are to be addressed not only by economic means (such as his economic sanctions against Russia) but also by military means, and that these cadets are therefore to think of their nation\u2019s economic competitors as additionally being also America\u2019s enemies. He even said there that all nations except the U.S. are dispensable; and his precise words to assert this type of American exceptionalism were that \u201cthe United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.\u201d Consequently, for example, Russia and China (like any other enemy) are<\/em> \u2018dispensable\u2019 (because only one is not:<\/em> America).<\/p>\n

Of course, some fascist leaders, such as Francisco Franco, haven\u2019t similarly held their nation to be the only<\/em> \u2018indispensable\u2019 nation. Not all fascist leaders do, but Adolf Hitler certainly did believe that his was, and he too was a fascist, though not a member of Mussolini\u2019s party, the Fascist Party, because Hitler had his own fascist party, the Nazis. Obama is a member of the Democratic Party, which has existed ever since the beginning of the American republic. Fascism didn\u2019t even exist back then. Furthermore, U.S. President FDR was passionately anti<\/em>-fascist, and he led the Democratic Party during the time of Mussolini and Hitler, and went to war against them. However, there is evidence that Obama is a fascist in the sense that Mussolini initiated as not merely the Fascist Party, but more germane here, in the more basic sense, as the fascist ideology<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0Michael Froman has insisted that a country which systematically and regularly ignores whenever a labor union organizer gets murdered, isn\u2019t therefore disqualified from being included in trade agreements such as the U.S. is now proposing.<\/a>\u00a0Obama, quite evidently (from his proposed trade treaties) feels that it\u2019s quite okay for American workers to be competing against workers in foreign countries where labor union organizers are like free-fire-zone targets for corporations that want them to be (mysteriously) eliminated.<\/p>\n

Of course, Obama\u2019s rhetoric doesn\u2019t say any such thing; he\u2019s far more genteel than was Mussolini. But Obama\u2019s actions, and the people whom he appoints to run the federal offices for him and who carry out his policies (such as Froman), show the real person, not merely the verbal front, and his agents make quite clear that, where the ideological rubber actually hits the policy highway, Barack Obama is, in fact, a classic fascist, in the sense that the first fascist leader, Mussolini, was. Obama\u2019s concept of \u2018free trade\u2019 is the fascist version, not<\/em> the democratic one.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0previously<\/a>\u00a0noted that,<\/p>\n

Mussolini \u2026 had learned his fascism from the economist <\/em>Vilfredo Pareto, whose teachings had inspired the young Mussolini<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As Pareto\u00a0himself said, 1 September 1897, in his essay\u00a0<\/em>\u201cThe New Theories of Economics\u201d<\/em><\/a>: \u201cWere I of the opinion that a certain book would contribute more than\u00a0any other to establish free trade in the world at large I would not hesitate an\u00a0instant to\u00a0give myself up heart and soul to the study of this particular work,\u00a0putting aside for the\u00a0time all study of pure science.\u201d But what the international corporations call \u201cfree trade\u201d isn\u2019t quite the same thing that supporters of democracy would mean by that phrase.<\/em><\/p>\n

The same article also documented extensively that Pareto specifically condemned \u201cthe empty words of meaning of the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man,\u201d and that he rejected equality of rights. He set forth the ideology upon the basis of which (for example) Michael Froman might \u2018justify\u2019 American workers competing against ones in countries where labor union organizers can be murdered with impunity: only the corporation\u2019s owners should have the right to collective bargaining (via their management, lobbyists, etc.). Pareto was very big on the rights of owners, but that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama\u2019s \u2018free trade\u2019 is entirely in keeping with fascism. It\u2019s simply extending that, globally, and excluding from the mega-trading-blocs that he is creating, the BRICS nations (now just the RICS nations, because of the successful coup in Brazil). This is in accord with his having told West Point cadets that they might be called upon by their nation to treat those nations where \u201crising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums,\u201d as being America\u2019s enemies, to be killed or captured \u2014 conquered. Perhaps this is to be the new gunboat diplomacy.<\/p>\n

Irrespective of Obama\u2019s rhetoric, which is often in accord with the tradition of America\u2019s Founders,\u00a0his proposed trade treaties are in blatant violation even of the U.S. Constitution itself, as well as of the very clearly expressed intentions of the chief individuals who drafted it and who led this nation during its earliest years.<\/a><\/p>\n

All knowledgeable people are aware that Obama is pushing not only for a locked-in American domination of the world, but for U.S. corporate dictatorship. As I previously headlined,\u00a0\u201cUN Lawyer Calls TTP & TTIP \u2018a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected\u00a0governments call the shots\u2019.\u201d<\/a> But, what the UN\u2019s legal expert on these matters has to say about them, doesn\u2019t receive nearly as much freebie promotion as is provided to even just one of the U.S. White House\u2019s fascist puff-pieces; so, the UN\u2019s expert gets drowned out by the fascist cacophony.<\/p>\n

Consequently, though the publics both in the U.S. and EU are opposed to these \u2018free trade\u2019 treaties (notwithstanding all the PR for them), the governments can just go ahead and sign them. This is Western \u2018democracy\u2019<\/a>. The publics are the ducks, and the people who control things need to fatten up our livers a bit more, regardless<\/em> of what we think. Obama and his allies are preparing this meal, and the people who paid them to do it are hungry, and are demanding to be served this feast, ASAP. The ducks (despite all the pretty sounds about how nutritious this food will be) might squawk about it, but, after all, the ducks don\u2019t own the farm, and the people who do are the actual decision-makers \u2014 in accord with what Mussolini and his teacher Pareto said should be the case.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 <\/em>They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/a>,<\/em> of\u00a0<\/em>Christ\u2019s Ventriloquists: The Event that Created Christianity<\/a>, and\u00a0of<\/em>\u00a0Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 washingtonsblog.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like the foie gras producer ramming food down ducks\u2019 throats to create diseased super-fatty livers for humans to eat, Barack Obama is trying to ram dictatorship down Europeans\u2019 throats, for the benefit of billionaires. And, like the foie-grass lobbyists who say it\u2019s all just the \u2018free market\u2019 at work, Obama\u2019s commercial-treaties salesman is saying it\u2019s all being done in order to support \u2018free trade\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}