While I was being bent over a work-bench to get my free-trade bonus, this guy was predicting that "free trade" would mess me up

He was right.

The free trade dream has been the darling of politicians in the Nations of Virtue for practically two generations now.

How could it not be?

Free trade!

Globalisation!

It's inevitable, the global media conglomerates have been telling us forever.

Jobs jobs jobs that old shit-bag lyin' Brian Mulroney used to tell us when he was on the campaign trail.

Yup. Jobs jobs jobs.

He forgot to mention that it was gonna be jobs jobs jobs for Mexicans and pogey pogey pogey for us dumbfucks in Canada.

Then he drastically cut back the pogey.

Thanks, Brian!

Have to admit I was a little late to the game.

Martin Jacques had it figured out way sooner.

Most shameless PM in Canadian history gets speakers fee for sharing vision of Canada in 2020

Brian Mulroney made a few headlines across the land today when he addressed a conference put on by the think tank Canada2020.  That's an outfit that, while "non-partisan," is very much partial to the rampant exploitation of Canada in the interests of big capital.

In case you've forgotten Lyin' Brian's bona fides, he's the guy who drove the Progressive Conservative Party so deep into the ground that after he handed it off to Kim Campbell it lost all but two seats in the next election, an epic fail the likes of which have never been seen before or since in Canadian politics. That's what brought about the Reform Party's (Canada's Tea Party) rise to a place where they could take over the venerable Tory party.

That was far from his only accomplishment. The wily sleazebag also made a name for himself for the Karlheinz Schreiber scandal, wherein the bagman for the German Thiessen-Krupp conglomerate handed cash-stuffed envelopes to Prime Minister Mulroney, who was apparently having a moment of "poor judgement" at the time.

And who can forget Mr. Mulroney's principled stand against apartheid in South Africa?

Although he never expressed any reservations about the apartheid regime he presided over vis-a-vis Canadian aboriginals, Mr. Mulroney was deeply concerned about apartheid in South Africa, to such an extent that he is to this day considered in some quarters to have been one of the world leaders who headed up anti-apartheid sanctions against that country.

South Africa at the time had the dominant gold coin in circulation among those who need to hoard gold, the Krugerrand. Canada was on the threshold of introducing its own gold coin.

By the most fortuitous stroke of coincidence, after his retirement from politics Mulroney reaped many millions of dollars from a generous sinecure at Canada's biggest gold producer, Barrick.

But that's all in the past. What is Brian's vision for Canada in 2020?

Well, Canada's future hinges on the unhinged and unregulated exploitation of Canada's natural resources. Good leadership is leadership that overcomes the objections of natives and environmentalists and pinkos of all stripes as it secures Canada's future by turning it into a one-trick economy predicated on rampant resource exploitation.

Since the NAFTA deal he lobbied so tirelessly for has all but destroyed Canada's manufacturing sector, he could well be on to something. Like, what the hell else can we do?

Turn back the clock? Undo NAFTA? Make peace with our Indian population? Secure our natural resources for future generations to harvest in a responsible way? Put the interests of Canadians ahead of the interests of multi-national conglomerates? Favour Canadian workers over Filipinos and Mexicans? Favour the environment over pell-mell resource exploitation?...

Nope, not a chance. Our hands are tied... it's time to forget the pipe-dreams and forge ahead with the pipelines.

Harper gang lowers boom on public servants

Treasury Board President Tony Clement today announced that his government intends to get tough on public servants.

For starters, he wants to end the lavish 15 sick days per year that most public servants are contractually entitled to. According to Tony, work rules in the public service haven't changed since the 1970's.

That's a telling statement. Mr. Clement is acknowledging that they haven't improved since the 1970's.

Private sector workers have in the interim had the rug pulled out from under them, a process that began in the 1970's but was greatly hastened by the introduction of NAFTA. Workers of a certain age will remember the sales job.

In fact, "jobs jobs jobs" was Mulroney's mantra as he campaigned for "free trade." American money, Canadian resources, and Mexican labour would make a world-beating combo that would raise all boats in a veritable tsunami of prosperity!

Even the dullest shop-hand had misgivings about that. Not hard to see where it would be a bonanza for the American money and the Mexican labour, but what about the rest of us? That's where Mulroney expertly appealed to the worst instincts of the public; our inherent racism.

You see, the Mexicans were just getting the crap jobs. US and Canadian workers would flock to the coming wave of clean and lucrative high-tech jobs that the stupid brown people couldn't do if they wanted to.

The bosses got their free trade agreement and it didn't take long to see that the joke was on the workers. That's why private sector wages in North America have been going backwards for thirty years, and will continue to do so until we have wage parity with our Mexican free trade partners.

And the beauty of this reality is that it permits politicians like Tony Clement to argue that public sector wages and benefits have to be determined by prevailing private sector standards, which are in turn determined by what an impoverished Mexican is willing to work for!

It's a great system for the bosses and the owners and their politicians.

Not that great for the rest of us.

Jobs jobs jobs!!! Brian Mulroney and the NAFTA legacy

It was obvious from the beginning that Mulroney's campaign to push "free trade" down Canada's throat was going to be good for a few of his pals in the ownership classes, or the "one percent" as we refer to them now, and not so great for the rest of us.

But the sales job had an almost-believable appeal to the racism inherent in our society. Our brown-skinned brothers south of the Rio Grande would only get the shit jobs that we didn't want to do anyway.

We'd be doing all those new hi-tech jobs that were beyond the ability of our stupid brown-skinned brothers in Mexico.

Most of my union brothers in the United Steelworkers of America knew the truth right away; this was a fancy way of moving our jobs to Mexico.

But the Mulroney bullshit won the day.

Mulroney was in Toronto the other day to celebrate 25 years of NAFTA.

Mulroney was feted by U of T's Rotman School of Management, where they have no problem celebrating a shit-bag who weaseled his way out of serious bribery charges that followed the revelation that he had taken cash-stuffed envelopes from Karl-Heinz Schreiber, Krupp-Thiessen Ambassador at Large for schmier-geld back in the day.

So Rotman pays Lyin' Brian a speakers fee to come tell all about how great NAFTA has been. It has transformed the land!..

Indeed it has. A few days later The Globe and Mail finds room for this story. Seems twenty-five years after that glorious victory for "free trade"  half of all Toronto area employees are suffering from "precarious employment."

As in no benefits and no job security and if you don't like it, move to Mexico.

That's the real legacy of Mulroney's NAFTA achievement.