Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Notes on Bob Inglis's 8-8-2005 Walk & Talk in Greenville
Note to All,
Reporting on tonight's Walk & Talk with Bob Inglis in Greenville, by and large
I'd say we ate him for supper. He was smooth--kept his cool pretty well in
front of a mostly hostile audience (maybe one person who said anything was
*for* these trade agreements or thought they'd benefitted ordinary working
Americans).
I outlined these reasons why he should have voted No to CAFTA: (1) It is based
on the same flawed model as NAFTA, being an expansion of NAFTA; NAFTA basically
destroyed this country's manufacturing base by shipping it outside our borders;
(2) It threatens U.S. sovereignty; here I quoted from CAFTA's Preamble and also
noted the international bureaucracies; (3) CAFTA is un-Constitutional (Article
I, Sect. 8, Paragraph 3; Article VI); (4) CAFTA is not an isolated agreement
but part of a process, one that began even prior to NAFTA but ending with the
FTAA which aims at the regional integration of 34 nations--I displayed the
books *Integrating the Americas* published by the David Rockefeller Center at
Harvard University Press as documenation that this is not just paranoia or
"conspiracy theory" and *Regional Integration* about Europe published in the
late 1950s as evidence for how long the elites have been planning; I also noted
the new CFR document "Building a North American Community"; (5) How to deal
with China: get out of the WTO, revoke China's permanent "favored nation"
status or whatever the dickens it is called; then negotiate arrangements with
China that are *our* arrangements not subject to approval by globocrats; all
the while creating a less regulated and a more free-enterprise-friendly
environment in the U.S.
Inglis questioned whether it was NAFTA that destroyed our manufacturing base or
whether it was just changing technology leading us into an age when
manufacturing isn't as prevalent. (I don't think I made the point clearly
enough that these changes have been carefully orchestrated to take the economy
and the job market in a specific direction.)
His answer to the objection from U.S. sovereignty hasn't much changed; he
doesn't take seriously the claim (raised not by myself but several others) that
CAFTA contains provisions that threaten our ability to purchase vitamins and
dietary supplements without a doctor's prescription although Joyce pointed out
that such freedom of purchase has already been decimated in Australia; someone
else pointed out that the Europeans are losing ground in this area.
I asked him whether the multibillion dollar pharmaceutical industry favored
CAFTA, and he answered Yes--in his follow-up I'm not sure but I think he called
me a "leftist" (!) He noted that a lot of "leftists" oppose CAFTA (which some
do because they don't think it is socialist enough). LOL! I haven't been
called a "leftist" since my sophomore year in college.
He didn't have an answer I could fathom to the claim that CAFTA is
unconstitutional.
He also didn't have an answer to my observations about CAFTA's leading to the
FTAA, or about the involvement of the CFR and global elites. Such matters are
clearly not on his radar screen. (He said he doesn't know anybody in the CFR
or who wants to eliminate this country through a regional integration
process.) All this means is that Inglis is not really one of the movers and
shakers (not that he would admit it if he was).
He thinks that if we withdrew from the WTO the stock market would take a huge
plunge immediate and it would be 1929 all over again. (I observed that stocks
are overvalued, because of the huge injections of unbacked credit pumped into
circulation by the Federal Reserve during the noxious 1990s--no I didn't call
them that, but only because in the heat of the moment I didn't think of it.
He made an interesting point about intellectual property rights built into
CAFTA that supposedly would protect our products from China, although how this
would keep China from "stealing our stuff," as he put it, escaped me.
He did not have an answer to those who argued that he, Bob Inglis, sold out
South Carolina's 4th District most of whom opposed CAFTA and wanted him to vote
No to CAFTA--other than, "it's a complicated world" implying if not stating
openly that we are simple.
The last guy to speak, some older guy I didn't know, was someone I didn't know
but argued that NAFTA had created all these good paying jobs, that more people
were working in American than ever before, that the average income was higher,
etc., etc., but didn't seem to have a single item of documentation to
substantiate his claims.
I spoke with one of his staffers after the meeting broke up, a black girl named
April, and asked her to keep her ear to the ground about just what it would
take to get Bob Inglis's attention focused on the FTAA and on opposing it, on
the grounds that it is a whole lot more dangerous than CAFTA!
The meeting broke up when the library folks started turning out the lights.
I'm pumped up. I think I'll go to the Spartanburg one tomorrow night!
Best,
Steven Yates
Adjunct Instructor, Philosophy
USC-Upstate and Greenville Technical College
Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.
Board Member, S.C. Chapter, Citizens Committee to Stop the FTAA
Watch for WORLDVIEWS: Christian Theism vs. Modern Materialism (due out soon!)
Blog: http://itshappeninghere.blogspot.com
Reporting on tonight's Walk & Talk with Bob Inglis in Greenville, by and large
I'd say we ate him for supper. He was smooth--kept his cool pretty well in
front of a mostly hostile audience (maybe one person who said anything was
*for* these trade agreements or thought they'd benefitted ordinary working
Americans).
I outlined these reasons why he should have voted No to CAFTA: (1) It is based
on the same flawed model as NAFTA, being an expansion of NAFTA; NAFTA basically
destroyed this country's manufacturing base by shipping it outside our borders;
(2) It threatens U.S. sovereignty; here I quoted from CAFTA's Preamble and also
noted the international bureaucracies; (3) CAFTA is un-Constitutional (Article
I, Sect. 8, Paragraph 3; Article VI); (4) CAFTA is not an isolated agreement
but part of a process, one that began even prior to NAFTA but ending with the
FTAA which aims at the regional integration of 34 nations--I displayed the
books *Integrating the Americas* published by the David Rockefeller Center at
Harvard University Press as documenation that this is not just paranoia or
"conspiracy theory" and *Regional Integration* about Europe published in the
late 1950s as evidence for how long the elites have been planning; I also noted
the new CFR document "Building a North American Community"; (5) How to deal
with China: get out of the WTO, revoke China's permanent "favored nation"
status or whatever the dickens it is called; then negotiate arrangements with
China that are *our* arrangements not subject to approval by globocrats; all
the while creating a less regulated and a more free-enterprise-friendly
environment in the U.S.
Inglis questioned whether it was NAFTA that destroyed our manufacturing base or
whether it was just changing technology leading us into an age when
manufacturing isn't as prevalent. (I don't think I made the point clearly
enough that these changes have been carefully orchestrated to take the economy
and the job market in a specific direction.)
His answer to the objection from U.S. sovereignty hasn't much changed; he
doesn't take seriously the claim (raised not by myself but several others) that
CAFTA contains provisions that threaten our ability to purchase vitamins and
dietary supplements without a doctor's prescription although Joyce pointed out
that such freedom of purchase has already been decimated in Australia; someone
else pointed out that the Europeans are losing ground in this area.
I asked him whether the multibillion dollar pharmaceutical industry favored
CAFTA, and he answered Yes--in his follow-up I'm not sure but I think he called
me a "leftist" (!) He noted that a lot of "leftists" oppose CAFTA (which some
do because they don't think it is socialist enough). LOL! I haven't been
called a "leftist" since my sophomore year in college.
He didn't have an answer I could fathom to the claim that CAFTA is
unconstitutional.
He also didn't have an answer to my observations about CAFTA's leading to the
FTAA, or about the involvement of the CFR and global elites. Such matters are
clearly not on his radar screen. (He said he doesn't know anybody in the CFR
or who wants to eliminate this country through a regional integration
process.) All this means is that Inglis is not really one of the movers and
shakers (not that he would admit it if he was).
He thinks that if we withdrew from the WTO the stock market would take a huge
plunge immediate and it would be 1929 all over again. (I observed that stocks
are overvalued, because of the huge injections of unbacked credit pumped into
circulation by the Federal Reserve during the noxious 1990s--no I didn't call
them that, but only because in the heat of the moment I didn't think of it.
He made an interesting point about intellectual property rights built into
CAFTA that supposedly would protect our products from China, although how this
would keep China from "stealing our stuff," as he put it, escaped me.
He did not have an answer to those who argued that he, Bob Inglis, sold out
South Carolina's 4th District most of whom opposed CAFTA and wanted him to vote
No to CAFTA--other than, "it's a complicated world" implying if not stating
openly that we are simple.
The last guy to speak, some older guy I didn't know, was someone I didn't know
but argued that NAFTA had created all these good paying jobs, that more people
were working in American than ever before, that the average income was higher,
etc., etc., but didn't seem to have a single item of documentation to
substantiate his claims.
I spoke with one of his staffers after the meeting broke up, a black girl named
April, and asked her to keep her ear to the ground about just what it would
take to get Bob Inglis's attention focused on the FTAA and on opposing it, on
the grounds that it is a whole lot more dangerous than CAFTA!
The meeting broke up when the library folks started turning out the lights.
I'm pumped up. I think I'll go to the Spartanburg one tomorrow night!
Best,
Steven Yates
Adjunct Instructor, Philosophy
USC-Upstate and Greenville Technical College
Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.
Board Member, S.C. Chapter, Citizens Committee to Stop the FTAA
Watch for WORLDVIEWS: Christian Theism vs. Modern Materialism (due out soon!)
Blog: http://itshappeninghere.blogspot.com
