US Chamber Hates 'Buy American' Slogan
The Pap Attack
Wednesday October 21, 2009 1:16 p.m.
The slogan, "Buy American," makes good sense during a time when America is digging its way out of a recession that took 8 years to create. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has lost sight of who they use to represent, so they are spending millions to make sure that Americans ignore the slogan, "Buy American." The U.S. Chamber has hired Madison Avenue PR firms to discourage any "Buy American" trend from taking hold with consumers.
When you understand that the U.S. Chamber no longer represents mom-and- pop businesses, that Chamber position makes sense. The organization that use to represent small business interests has morphed into a lapdog that serves a new master. That master is international mega corporations.
The Chamber went as far as lobbying to exclude "Buy American" provisions in economic stimulus programs. When the clunkers-for-cash program sold 700,000 new automobiles, the Japanese did cartwheels while American auto factory workers stood in unemployment lines.
For decades, the U.S. Chamber has operated below the radar while they promoted campaigns that have pandered to the big money power that controls their organization. They campaigned to promote illegal immigration in order to secure cheap labor. They have campaigned to expand offshore tax haven laws that move 100 billion dollars a year away from America's tax base, while average American taxpayers take up the slack. They lobbied to make it more lucrative for America's mega corporations to ship jobs overseas. When the Chamber unleashed their lobbying efforts on healthcare reform, their approach was predictable. They came to the defense of America's largest insurance companies. Those massive insurance companies were terrified of free market competition with a public option plan. The Chamber makes small business the victim. Some small businesses have seen 400% premium increases in their employee health plans in just the last ten years because there are no options.
It doesn't stop there. When big box retail stores come to town to put mom-and-pop small family stores out of business, you will always find the U.S. Chamber's efforts siding with Goliath against David. But in past weeks, Apple and Nike Corporations focused some light on how out of touch the U.S. Chamber leadership has become. Those two giants abandoned the Chamber because of its flat-earth position on climate change. The Chamber is trying to stop legislation directed at lowering greenhouse gases. Their talking points are that severe climate change actually is taking place, but a warmer climate will be healthier for our world's population. Cold is bad, warm is good - is the psychotic lunacy being pitched by the dinosaurs who call the shots for the U.S. Chamber. That caliber of demented talk is too weird for corporations that have abandoned the Chamber in the last month. The real benefit to all this is that it is becoming difficult for the Chamber to operate unnoticed in its altered reality world. Witless babble is always an attention-getter.
Local chambers are the engines that drive sustainable capitalism because they represent mom-and-pop business. It is that smaller business group that should get a queasy feeling every time they send support money to a U.S. Chamber that is so out of touch with America in 2009.
There are 17 comments
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In 1965, 95% of American clothing was made in the U.S.A.; by 2009, only 5% is manufactured here.
But I see we want to blame that on Bush too?
Oh, and Sporty: The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to execution.
As amusing as it would be, ( I personally like to imagine them donning ski masks and dropping into a room from an air vent a la "The Boondock Saints.") it just isn't accurate to say that Bush and Cheney killed him. Invade the country, yes. Find him in a hole, yes. (Mind you, the pair didn't literally invade the country or find him, but you get the idea.) [Snickers to self while vision of Bush and Cheney searching Iraq for Saddam runs through head.]
@Jimbar and Sporty
Protectionist policies are a whited sepulcher. (read: outwardly good-looking, but fundamentally flawed. I actually had a huge argument with my AP Lang. teacher when we read Heart of Darkness that this phrase is unfair towards dead people, but that's a story for another day.) These policies, while starting with a good premise (protecting and encouraging American jobs), cause international pissing matches between countries that get caught up in a protectionist arms race. Case in point: the Chicken Tax.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125357990638429655.html
And yet another example of protectionism gone awry, also conspicuously involving chickens.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/09/podcast_1.html
Americans have lost their ability to support and defend ourselves from our enemies ,, and now it looks like the one from within...
We have to cut the umbilical cord on these Global Corporations which have sent all of the American manufacturing plants and jobs overseas. This was a well planned operation to destroy our workers and any control the people of this country could have over them.
It is time to take our country back.
We should by now see what happens when you let these greedy , criminal become a monopoly and empires which pay to run our laws and government officials..
It is time to reinforce our laws on monopolies and destroy their Control over our workers , citizens and our country.
Look at what is one example of the disaster and problems coming from outsourcing American manufacturing sites and jobs overseas..
Their manufacturing plants they have outsourced overseas are giving their citizens the Flu and H1N1 vaccines while Americans will go through the season without their..
We will MAYBE receive SOME of the vaccines when the majority of the danger from our citizens catching and dying from it is over at the end of December or early next year.
Just wait until we are forced into a war with a nation which is not a third war country like Iraq and we no longer have the capability to manufacture our equipment , supplies and food for our soldiers or citizens..
This is what made our nation Strong during our previous war world and able to win the victory....
Why are we not buying as much of our products at the mom and pop store NOW.. If it cost a little more , cut one item out and buy it later..
Bush has infiltrated our government agencies so they will support the Global Empires which have placed their feet in foreign countries to kill our unions , cut our workforce and take complete control over any actions of Americans workers.
Obama not renegotiating the free trade bill along with his other promise to cut Bush's tax cuts to the top 10 percent of the wealthy Americans still make me mad as h....
The tax cut have given the wealthy over 2 trillion dollars which would have went to our Country to pay for their war in Iraq , our health bill and many other programs which the state had to cut because of the lack of over 6 million jobs sent overseas by the free trade bill..
Of course foreign countries do not want US to renegotiate the free trade bill because they love the wealth it has sent their way...
And of course the Global Empires love the 2 trillion dollars in tax cut.
By the way what do you think of the draft dodger Cheney ,, going to his conservative base meetings with his partners in crime like Rumsfeld and Libby S.,, to attack Obama because Obama is trying to figure the best plan for Afghanistan which Bush and Cheney screwed up royally....
Cheney and these other criminal republican creeps keep showing up to use their lies , deceit and BS to attack someone for the disaster they have caused.
By the way,,,,, After Bush and Cheney illegally attacks Iraq and kills their leader , no matter why one thinks of Saddam and Exxon didn't even bid for the oil they went in to steal... Of Course CHINA and BRITAIN got the Oil contracts from Iraq while Exxon did not even make a bid,,,, So We paid a very heavy toll , by our courageous military and the economy of our Nation for Bush , Cheney and his war hawks cowboy tactics in the middle east....
They kill over 4,500 American soldiers , wounded over 40,000 American soldiers and 10% of the military which were sent to Iraq have mental problems when returning home..
I'm a Mac user and don't do Microsoft very well - I hate it ! so keep your damned software !
The US Chamber of Commerce is an internationalist corporation that is more concerned with international companies that take our dollars and ship them overseas, paying little or no taxes. The Chamber is more concerned with making money for international mega-corps that support it than looking out for American small business persons. We don't need cheap Chinese goods. We need American jobs that add value to our economic base by producing American goods. The US Chamber, along with Big Pharma, the bankers, insurance thieves, investment firms and oil companies need to be brought under control by a government of, by and for the people of the USA.
Unfortunately, Most manufacturing and business associations in the U.S. include foreign owned companies. Since they must represent (and not offend) members, they can not take pro-U.S. stands. Consider the Portland Cement Association.... 90% of its U.S. facilities are foreign owned.
Killjoy posts for me. I'd still rather buy an American made Toyota than a Mexican made Ford. I wish the Prius plant in Texas hadn't been cancelled.
OK, everyone, vote with your wallet!
The US Chamber of Commerce has lied about its membership levels for years. The US Chamber of Commerce approves of the gang rape of American women working abroad as contractors. They opposed the Franken Amendment refusing taxpayer dollars to companies that sanction rape of contract employees. So, it comes as no surprise the US Chamber of Commerce doesn't support "buy america", it would interfere with their global reach and the gluttony of their hallowed members. The US Chamber of Commerce like the GOP and FAUX News is an instrument of the rich and powerful to undermine the US constitution, promote low wages, shrink the middle class and dominate world trade. There is nothing American about the US Chamber of Commerce.
I'm happy to see Apple left the Chamber of commerce over that organization's opposition to any climate change bills. Several other companies have left too.
"The Chamber went as far as lobbying to exclude "Buy American" provisions in economic stimulus programs. When the clunkers-for-cash program sold 700,000 new automobiles, the Japanese did cartwheels while American auto factory workers stood in unemployment lines."
Um... NO. I'd like to point out that MOST "Japanese" branded cars, such as Honda and Toyota, that are sold in this country are built right here in this country. The stand the Chamber takes is the ONLY logical position any trade organization should take. The old-world wisdom that because something bares a blue oval, a 5 point star, or golden bowtie means it's "American" is wildly out-moded. The cold hard reality is MOST cars built in the USA are built by foreign companies sans the albatross of union labor.
continued.
I'll sidetrack to correct my buddy Dennis real quick. When I need accurate statistics, I like to hit up Gapminder ( http://www.gapminder.org/ ), which puts everything in pretty graphs, and keeps me from putting my foot in my mouth by making egregious errors. Anywho, Gapminder told me that in 2007, the US spent 18.6 billion in foreign aid. Multiplied by 20 (number of years Dennis says the White House was occupied by Republicans), you get 372 billion. Which is not a Trillion dollars. Not two Trillion dollars, in fact, which you would have to meet or exceed in order to qualify as TRILLIONS which may not be accurate, but certainly has a feeling of fire and brimstone to it. I would suspect that Dennis took the time out to capitalize the word Trillions because of this.
What I'm saying is that at 2007 levels, it would take 107 years to spend Trillions on foreign aid. Sorry, Dennis, but 107 years ago they weren't spending at that level. Do we blame Republicans? Democrats?
Blame the high school coaches who teach Economics classes to American teenagers. If the people in government had an extra semester of Econ, we probably wouldn't get crap like this: http://reason.com/archives/2009/08/14/the-godzilla-solution
Sorry, I seem to have momentarily misplaced my irony. Oh.... wait.... here it is!
Anyway, let me close with a remark about those health insurance robbers. The absolute last thing we need to do is let people buy health insurance across state lines. If we do, it'll be like some kind of Godzilla v. Mothra v. Space Godzilla v. King Kong v. Rodan v. King Ghidorah, with massive companies trying to undercut each other for market domination. Which sounds scary, because it is scary. Instead, we need a government-subsidized government option to compete with them, and we can claim that subsidizing it is called free-market competition. The main benefit of the last one is that Barry can take credit for the idea of reallocating taxpayer money into this government option, wherein the monster fight would make it seem like the problem was caused by preexisting government policy.
Where do these big companies get their money from? If I didn't know better, I'd think they were doing commerce, wherein goods and services are exchanged from places of low value (producers) to places of high value (consumers). Instead, I know that Big Business is in fact just a disguise used by robbers and pirates (not Johnny Depp, mind you, but scary old men) when extorting the American common man, who suffers the indignity of having to earn a wage in order to pay for things.
It's a travesty that those international mega corporations do such a damn persistent job of trying to provide cheaper, higher quality consumer options to the American People. WE NEED HUGE PROTECTIVE TARIFFS! Otherwise those wily consumers won't spend the extra money needed to pay for things made in America (Note: things made in America are made by Americans, who have a minimum wage. The you pay for this when you buy goods they produce. ) I mean, sure, tariffs might put a squeeze on low-income families, but as we all know, the American People just can't be trusted to make a moral decision on their own.
your wrong ........the government has given Trillions to almost every nation on earth .....the federal contracts for the new jet fighter proves it and what about the contract to build the new missele defence system in Poland ?? there were only a few American Business involved and then there is the current new cargo and refuling air ships those are not to be built here either :
So what is American - you should be asking - its not the majoity of the Media -radio-tv-newspappers their owned by rupert Murdoch he is not an American and neither is the majiority of the largest Drug Co. ......so whats this statement by you saying???
And the Republicans have had this whitehouse for over 20 years , and the congress ( reagan- Ford-Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr. all had their time and lets include Nixion in there ........all but Ford had 8 years apeice :Republicans , and others need to explain where and why you spent the NATIONS WEALTH................WHY NOT AMERICANS THIS TIME ???!!!!
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