Evidence for why Bolton should not be confimed

I just sat there with my mouth hanging open when I saw this last night.If anyone wants to know why Bolton should NOT BE CONFIRMED as the US ambassador to the UN, watch this video.It was clearly a big "f*ck you!" from Bush to the UN to even nominate him, and I am appalled that he is even being considered. here,here,here, or here.

The UN is not perfect, but it is useful in many ways.It can, however, make things difficult for the US if it really wanted to, and I wouldn't blame them at all if Bolton becomes the new Ambassador to the UN.Bolton isn't just a critic of the UN.He thinks the UN should be abolished and the only thing that matters iswhat the US wants, and to hell with the rest of the world.Is that the attitude you want the US to have?

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Clearly Bolton is a dick, but putting someone who is anti-UN in the UN isn't going to bring the UN down.

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Did you watch that movie I posted?Bolton isn't just a dick who loses his shit in an international forum and shouts that the only thing that matters is the UN doing exactly what the US wants it to do.He's supposed to be a diplomat who is going to be representing the United States to the rest of the world in the UN.I'm not at all worried about Bolton bringing the UN down.I am worried about the US being shut out.Congress just voted to appropriate another $83 BILLION to sink into the black hole of Iraq. That pain might have been spread around a bit more had Bush not decided to act unilaterally and piss everyone else in the world off.The US is not invulnerable, especially if we make the rest of the world angry enough to band together.

Phat, the US wields incredible power in the UN, by design.Which of those "couple of hundred little countries" enjoys permenant veto power like the US and a few other countries have?

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If the European Union consolidates economically, we will risk losing the dollar as the international currency standard. All it would take is China and Japan to back them up.
After all, they own almost 1/3 of our national debt between them, and we have to hope they keep buying our paper, or else it is going to cost us a lot more to service that debt.

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It costs around $1.35US to buy one Euro.The small business I work for imports specialty food from mostly very small producers in Europe and we have just not been able to afford to get as much on the last three import shipments, and we have not been able to afford to purchase several very expensive products at all.Freight costs have gone up as well because fuel is more expensive, and our insurance rates have also gone up because since 9/11 we are more likely to have unusual items rejected by the FDA.We have had to raise the price of some olive oils as much as 40%, for example, so we have ordered less because we know we will sell much less than when it was less expensive.So, no raise for me this year, less income for the farmers who make the olive oil, less work for the truckers, and higher costs of doing business for everyone.Our ever-rising national debt is eroding our credit worthiness as a nation.In my eyes, the EU has already consolodated a lot of it's economic power, and it's crushing the dollar....or, rather, the dollar/US economy is so weak it cannot compete with the Euro.

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The point being that the pain should have been spread around a bit, & Bush wouldn't have been acting unilaterally if the UN members that voted on the various Chapter 7 resolutions weren't just guffing hot air when they did.

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You make it sound as though the Iraq war was inevitable....or justified.Why did Bush "have" to invade Iraq at all?What was the rush? What was the danger that Iraq posed?Seriously, what do you know that I don't know about how dangerous Iraq was?

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Consumers, a much larger, if less-well organized group of the public are the ones who deserve more representation from government, and they have everything to benefit from allowing these cheaper imports into our markets.

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...except the continued loss of their jobs, or a steady erosion of their wages and benefits.Of course, CEO's, executive board members, and people who are already wealthy are just going to get richer in this situation.

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Why should everyone be forced to subsidize a handful of steel workers in Pittsburg when their technology is so out of date they are not even producing the grades of alloy steel in demand today?
It just puts up the price of steel for all Americans who need to buy it.

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Who's going to be able to afford to "buy expensive steel" when they are all laid off, or re-employed at a third of their previous wage?Of course, you meant that it's the heads of large corporations who need to buy the steel, right?

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If the CEOs took a pay cut to 100K...the textile jobs are still going to China. Sorry.

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True, but the CEO's would still have a job, and also would have a lot more credibility when they propose eliminating the pensions that their workers earned when they say the company can't "afford" to pay them.It's not CEO's per se that I blame entirely for the inhumane way workers are treated in the US.I blame the rise of the Corporation as the typical business model.It has no human decency.It is, as Percy wants it to be, a "slave to the bottom line".To hell with the people who actually do the work.

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Every American who bought a car or a refrigerator or anything with significant steel content over the past 20 years has been paying more for that steel to support the American steel industry.

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I am willing to pay extra if it means that the food I eat or the clothes I wear are produced in the US rather than in China or in Indonesia or in Mexico.I figure that you get the world you pay for.

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Well if you really mean 'world', as opposed to just the USA, then we need to oppose economic protectionism because it distorts the free market system to favor our own producers unfairly. That doesn't mean you don't have a right to buy preferencially according to origin of production. It only means we make a sincere effort to level the playing field for everyone.

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So, we have these trade agreements with places like Mexico and Indonesia which have very cheap labor.US corporations move their production to those countries, thus increasing their profit margin.You say that the consumer in the US can then "choose" the country of origin for their purchases, but because they have lost their jobs and/or have been forced to take a drastic pay cut, they can only afford the cheaper, foreign-produced goods, so it is really only an illusion of choice. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of stuff in a WalMart, but the range of quality is very narrow, and the country of origin of most of the stuff is probably limited to a few like China, Indonesia, Vietam, Mexico, etc.It's not at all the case that we either have to choose between a completely free free market system and total protectionism.Indeed, neither scenario is desireable.We can, however, create trade agreements which do not reward corporations for relocating jobs out of the country, for using child labor, for not paying a decent wage, and we can also require the other countries to purchase some American made goods.As it stands now, it's only the corporations which really benefit in the long term.I remember an episode of Michael Moore's "TV Nation" around the time NAFTA was in the news in which he went to Mexico who says he is considering relocating the production of his show there. He was being driven around with a member of the local chamber of commerce-type, and Moore asked him about the typical wages of a local worker at a Whirlpool plant where they made washing machines.The exchange went like this: Now, turn that on it's head.If American workers see an erosion of their wages and benefits because the jobs are relocating to other countries, they are less able to afford the goods, because the huge savings the corporations enjoy on labor are not being transferred back to the consumer in the form of drastically cheaper goods. The savings is being pocketed by the corporation and it's shareholders.

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Besides, protectionism is very much a Republican agenda -
you're not turning Republican on us, are you ?

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Maybe 20 years ago Republicans were potectionist.They are all about the freest of free trade now.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 05-19-2005 09:00 AM

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factory workers could all go into construction.

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How do you figure?I mean, do you think that most of the people who work in factories are young, strong, able-bodied people?I have been inside several factories where most of the people were women in their 40's and 50's.Many, many factory jobs are the type that require fine motor skills to operate machinery, or that do not require a lot of strength.

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With farming a 'big business' heavily-mechanized operation, they just aren't needed. And yet there still exists a large grass-roots movement to preserve the family farm 'way of life' that many Americans value deeply. But it is simply nostalgia, without economic justification.

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But why do you assume that large agri-business farms are preferable just because they make more money? They make money for the corporations, yes, but not for the local community.Small family farms are more likely to produce more varied crops and to be more responsive to their local customers' requests. They are less likely to think in the profit-driven short term and more likely to want to preserve the land and the waterways for future generations, and for their neighbors.Also, we can look to nations like Italy and France where really large agribusiness is nearly unheard of and local small farms, creameries, and other food producers are supported by the government rather than tax breaks given to the largest companies.

The jobs that a 50 year old woman can do after her good-paying factory job is exported are not many. Maybe kitchen work or housekeeping at a hotel, which certainly do not pay as well as construction; not even close. The kinds of shifts that are attractive for women with children are also not typical in construction.I don't know the solution, but I just know that they probably can't work construction

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nothing like focussing on a stupid example.

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Well, I wasn't going to call your exaple stupid, but it was a "solution" of sorts that you put forth.

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there's also a lot of 20-50 year old men in factory jobs.

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Sure. But I think you might be surprised how many women are factory workers.

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those ages already work in construction. you're being argumentative for now reason. the point isn't the construction field, the point is re-education. but then that's even out of favor in prisons...

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See, I thought that your point was that construction, in particular, pays really well and that the factory workers could go do that.Well, the 50 year old women probably couldn't, and they would probably take a cut in pay when they started to clean houses or change the bed linens in a hotel.

The point is that good-paying factory jobs with benefits are being eliminated entirely, and low-paying Wal-Mart jobs with no benefits are what is replacing them.It doesn't matter if you get lots of retraining to work in doctor's offices if there are the same number of jobs as before.