By WeBuyItGreen: promoting green living and fair trade

This is the first in a five-part series of articles that compare three alternatives to the traditional coffee trade industry:  fair trade, direct trade, and Starbucks’ C.A.F.E. program.  However, before we compare these three alternatives to one another, let’s take a look at why fair trade coffee was created in the first place.  What conditions in the traditional coffee industry have created the need for fair trade, or some alternative that resembles it?

At Ryan for Kentucky, we believe that the playing field has been tilted against working families for far too long. My whole life, it seems that war has been waged on union workers and workers attempting to form new unions. I have witnessed this personally in a union fight. Although initially, 80% of the workers at our warehouse signed on to become union, the long process allowed the company to come in and "behind the scenes" peel off these votes. How? By turning worker against worker. Promising promotion of certain workers, and higher wages and more benefits if the union failed.

Most Americans I hear from second-hand sources support drilling. I've heard numbers between 60 to 80%.

I'm guessing most Americans just want oil prices to come down. The problem with drilling right now to help oil prices is that it would take years for it to come on-line.

Therefore, I don't think they support drilling as much as they just want the prices to come down.

The Democratic Party needs to put forward a platform of how to bring oil prices down. I have some perspectives on the matter, which I believe would be worthwhile to explore.

When he vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, President Harry Truman called it "a slave-labor bill." The Republican-controlled Congress called it "an end to chaos," and overrode Truman's veto immediately. They were both politicking ahead of a defining campaign year.

The Presidential election of 1948 was a pivotal, fiercely fought contest for the soul of America. Post-World War. Early Cold War. Backlogged domestic issues. A nation starving for a new direction. A time when working people thought their wartime sacrifices and unresolved problems on the home front would take center stage. Indeed, the parties vying for the Oval Office crafted their campaigns (and parties themselves) around varying notions of what it would take to swing the working class vote their way. >>

In a stunning development Sunday morning and a rare act of journalism, Wolf Blitzer asked Governor Mark Sanford, a hapless McCain surrogate, whether there were any economic policy differences between Bush and McCain.

A mix of hemming, hawwing and stammering initiated an unequivocal non-response from Sanford. After making a few sputtering sounds, he Kevin-Jamesishly admitted that he's drawing blanks and noted the inopportunity of doing so on a live, national news show.

Hoping to rescue himself from youtube oblivion, he blurted out "NAFTA" in response to Wolf's question, and then he quickly attempted a recovery by crying out "earmarks! earmarks!" Wolf, in an unprecedented move for a cable news reporter, didn't let Sanford's NAFTA/earmark subterfuge go unnoticed, noting that Bush and McCain have no daylight between their positions on free trade. So Warner, in an effort at cleverness, agreed and added that the salient issue is the stark difference between Obama's and Bush/Mccain's economic policies.

Sounds to me like the Governor gets it. Some awesome, petard-hoisting video lies across the fold...

Remember when Obama and Clinton were talking about renegotiating NAFTA during their campaigns in Ohio and Texas? Let's push Obama to keep his word! The best thing (IMO) about Obama's candidacy is the popular movement behind him, which largely replaces corporate lobbyists. That means that we have a voice and can influence policy through him, in principle. Have a look at this website to learn more about why NAFTA needs to be renegotiated, and sign the petition to push our candidate to commit to doing so.

Briefly, NAFTA lacked enforceable and effective labor and environmental protections. Its shortcomings are evidenced by the migration of manufacturing jobs across the border and the stagnation of wages and occupational safety legislation in Mexico. Read more about it here. If you feel inclined, sign the petition to pressure our future president to work on renegotiating NAFTA.

  There seems to be an emerging consensus that so-called "free trade" is dead. Even the business press is beginning to accept the inevitable. So, maybe we can now begin a rationale debate about trade, without meaningless marketing phrases like "free trade".

  Mark Penn hates you. Everything Penn believes in--or, at least, everything he does to make money--runs counter to the very change that millions of Americans are thirsting for. Barack Obama has signaled to his top contributors that they should help retire Sen. Clinton's campaign debt. There should be one demand by those willing to make such a contribution--not a dime for Mark Penn.

Let's assume triangulating Democrats and screaming progressives don't screw it up for us, and Obama is elected the next president.

I feel strangely confident that this will occur.

But it's been widely noted that President Obama will be taking over a wounded nation; by what measure should we judge his ability to lead us towards a brighter future?

Free trade and conservative governance - a toxic mix when it comes to the nation's food supply:

LAREDO, Texas - Day after day, Mexican trucks line up as far as the eye can see for entry to the U.S. at the World Trade Bridge, carrying everything from raw tomatoes, broccoli and fresh basil to frozen seafood. They also bring in salmonella, listeria, restricted pesticides and other food poisons.

Customs and Border Protection officers take less than a minute per truck to determine which products enter the U.S. and find their way into grocery stores and restaurants...

McCain is going to balance the budget in 2008 while he lowers corporate taxes, continues to pass huge tax benefits for the rich and runs an expensive war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places in between.  Federal revenues might be a little down what with the recession and the housing crisis and health care costs spiraling out of control.  Federal spending might be a little up what with the inflation and the huge bills for spending programs.  McCain views all efforts to discuss NFTA reform as somehow a moral failing in Barack Obama, who is going back on his word [although Jesse Helms could refuse to pay United Nations dues just because].  

How you might ask?  How in the world will McCain be able to balance the budget while dealing with all these big economic forces.  Its easy!  

Crocs.

Admit it. You thought twice about the timing of the operation to free the hostages in Colombia. McCain. Trailing in the polls. Goes to speak about Free Trade in Colombia. The week a CNN poll found that 51% of Americans now 'feel threatened by free trade.' As President Bush continues to try to push through a new Free Trade agreement with Colombia before leaving office. The Republican Presidential nominee. And one-time prisoner of war. Is briefed about the rescue operation prior to its execution. The raid is a success. Cable news headlines like "McCain Knew" and "McCain met with Colombians prior to Hostage Rescue" and "Colombian Hostages Free" are read by millions of Americans watching muted TVs in bars, gyms, and noisy households across America. Heading into the Fourth of July weekend. When those Americans will stand around the grill and say, perhaps jokingly, but with the same predictable effect:

I'm fine with Obama's first salvo of national ads, but I'm also hoping for something different this year: I'd like to see an ad campaign that matches the 50-state strategy we've heard so much about.  In other words, let's see some ads that focus on the unique concerns throughout the country.

For example, there could be an ad just for Nevada slamming McCain for his pro-Yucca Flats position.  There could be an ad for Northern Virginia on Obama's plan for fixing the transportation crisis.  There could be an ad on fair trade for Michigan and Ohio.

Republican free trade VS Democratic free trade

July 02, 2008
Sean Lewis

Democratic free trade is
The foreign country opens it borders for US goods,
and  the US opens it borders to foreign goods.

That is it, that is free trade.

Republican free trade is
The foreign country opens it borders to BOTH
US companies and the ability to exchange goods.

However, this is the problem. Republicans believe
US companies should be able to open plants in the
foreign country to exploit the cheaper labor, create
goods at low costs and then sell those products in
the US market at greater earnings to the US Corps.

As usual, the ever-expanding economic divideremains the most under-considered issue worldwide. Through the prism (pyramid) of its creation, the ways it maintains itself, and its long and short term ramifications, every other major issue of our time is better understood, if not directly tied. This includes war, immigration, education, crime, health care, even climate change and national security. At what point should we (they)be more afraid of our own economically terrorized 90+%than of bands of 'extremists' holed up in caves on the other side of the world, disenfranchised and radicalized by the exact same forces?

  For the life of me, I can't figure out why political leaders like John McCain are continuing to embrace a dying, discredited theology called "free trade". As a new national poll shows, by hinging his economic message in large part on support for so-called "free trade", McCain has punched another hole in his campaign appeal to large numbers of working-class voters.

Tomatoes Are Like Motorcycles
By David Glenn Cox

Across the vast wasteland of the American dreamscape there is one who dare not show his face. Considered meaner than the lowest child molester and kicker of small dogs, this is one who would pee in swimming pools just for spite. Republicans revile him while Democrats look at the floor and slowly shake their heads with unadulterated disgust. A virulent strain of villain who would dare propose protectionism. Protectionism! Why the very word makes the honorable want to spit, the very thought is almost outright anarchism!

You just knew this was going to happen eventually.  The skyrocketing price of petroleum soon reaching the $200 level as our astute Jerome a Paris noted, has not only caused pain at the pump.  It has also started to hit the foundations of the whole way manufacturing done.  The whole mad free trade system is starting to buckle.