Nike's Obama Brand (Odor Eaters Recommended, But Not Included)
*Update (5/8): Odor-Eater alert! Get ready for the next Big Lie, once again brought to you by Obama's favorite steno, Peter Baker of the New York Times. The headline makes no effort to hide its shameless mendacity: Nike To Create Jobs If Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Approved.
The article then goes on to claim, without a shred of evidence or a shred of investigation, that the Sweatshop of the Pacific will create 10,000 new American jobs -- if and only if Nike and the rest of the global corporacracy are allowed take over more sovereign legislatures and court systems. The Times should be sued for journalistic malpractice, and Baker should go to work for Fox News.
**Update (5/9): As of this morning, Peter Baker had revised his article a pretty amazing eight times. The invaluable NYteXaminer has the Diffs, allowing us to watch the frantic propaganda spin out in real time. The narrative morphs from Nike's job creation being uncritically reported as fact by the newspaper, followed several hours later by a smarmy Nike "linking" of the trade pact to job creation, then on to both Obama and Nike using the passive-aggressive "linking" word, then Baker rewriting the lede into the usual lazy he said/she said battle of the partisans (Obama accuses Democrats of lying and he is usually mean, according to Peter Baker, only to the Republicans!) and finally, modifying the presidential temper tantrum into a more righteous "scolding" of Democrats. I wrote two comments, the first addressing the initial sneaky changes to the article, and the other remarking Obama's public hissy fit:
At least the editors now have the decency to change the headline of this
piece to Nike merely "linking" passage of the TPP to 10,000 new
American jobs. When it first appeared early today, this is what the
Times slavishly and unquestioningly announced: "Nike To Create Jobs If
Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Approved." The piece was online for hours
before its more "balanced" revision was posted, and it was opened up for
reader comments.
Readers giving the homepage a quick glance this
morning would have been under the (desired) mistaken impression that
the creation of 10,000 new jobs was engraved in stone and was a fact,
not just an "aspiration."
I'm wondering if the 10,000 figure is
simply the monetary equivalent of how many jobs COULD be created, should
the CEO and board and investors choose not to pocket the windfall
profits from this corporate coup. If their claim or promise is further
revised to read it would "support" 10,000 jobs, then there's your proof
of the bait and switch. Obama has already been awarded the maximum four
Pinocchios by Glenn Kessler for using similar phony jobs numbers to push
this deal from hell.
This
article does not attempt to verify Nike's claim that its Vietnamese
wage slaves are being treated any better. What salary are they paid? The
Nike CEO, himself worth a cool $23 billion, has refused to say. I wish
this newspaper would do a little more investigating. Coverage thus far
of the TPP by all of the mainstream media has been, to be blunt,
abysmal.
***
To paraphrase Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama should put up or shut up.
After
he'd previously accused Warren and other Democrats of lying about the
TPP, she and a group of fellow Democrats had challenged him to make the
terms and conditions of the deal public, so that the public and the reps
they elect can make an informed decision without being subject to what
can now only be called presidential badgering, even attempted extortion.
(if you don't do what he wants, it just naturally follows that you love
unemployment, hate the middle class, and are not "patriotic.")
To
date, Obama hasn't had the decency to reply to the Democrats he
smarmily professes to love. He resorts to throwing a public temper
tantrum the day after shamelessly raking in even more millions from the
wealthy donors he serves.
Obama might not have a political agenda, but he is definitely
campaigning for what promises to be a long and lucrative
post-presidential career. He is fully embracing his lame duck (or should
I say golden goose) status and thumbing his nose at the people who
elected him.
The man just squandered a huge chunk of whatever
public support he still had left. And he doesn't seem to care. He is
resorting to the lowest form of sophistry.
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