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<DIV class=subheadlinestyle><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt" size=4>Deregulation,
Privatization, and Cheap Labor</FONT></DIV>
<H1 class=article-title>Obama’s Corporate Plantations</H1><BR><BR><A
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/10/obamas-corporate-plantations/"
target=_blank><FONT
size=4><STRONG>http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/10/obamas-corporate-plantations/</STRONG></FONT></A><BR><BR><BR>
<DIV class=mainauthorstyle><FONT size=4><STRONG>by MIKE
WHITNEY</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=main-text><FONT size=4><STRONG>The man who promised to restore hope
and bring change to America, has announced a plan to open five corporate
plantations in the United States. On Thursday, President Barack Obama, whose
policies have resulted in the greatest number of public sector job losses in US
History (Public sector jobs have declined by 718,000 jobs since Obama took
office.) announced the opening of five “Promise Zones” located in San Antonio,
Philadelphia, Los Angeles, southeastern Kentucky, and the Choctaw Nation of
Oklahoma. According to an article in USA Today:<BR></STRONG></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=4><STRONG>“Under the proposed Promise Zones, the
federal government plans to partner with local governments and businesses to
provide tax incentives and grants to help combat poverty.”
(“</STRONG></FONT><A href="" target=_blank><FONT size=4><STRONG>Obama to name
5 ‘Promise Zones’ for assistance</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG>“,
USA Today)<BR></STRONG></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=4><STRONG>Combatting
poverty’ has nothing to do with it. Obama plans to shower the nation’s biggest
corporations–which recorded record profits in the last year and are presently
sitting on more than $1.3 trillion in cash–with more lavish subsidies and tax
breaks while providing an endless source of cheap slave labor to boost future
earnings. The president believes that the wealth generated in these profit
zones, er, promise zones will trickle down to the area’s residents, even
though–as the Christian Science Monitor notes–”it can be hard to tell whether a
program’s benefits reach the poorest people, rather than flowing largely into
the hands of the business owners who get the tax credits.”<BR>Here’s more from
USA Today:<BR></STRONG></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=4><STRONG>“Obama said his administration plans “to
partner with 20 of the hardest-hit towns in America to get these communities
back on their feet. We’ll work with local leaders to target resources at
public safety, and education, and housing.” (USA
Today)<BR></STRONG></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=4><STRONG>Translation: The
Obama administration is committed to assisting the corporate oligarchy whenever
possible even if it means further eviscerating the rapidly-diminishing US middle
class and reducing millions of hard-working Americans to grinding third world
poverty. Deregulation will allow corporations to privatize policing, education
and any other lucrative public resource or service. According to the New York
Times: “White House officials said the Promise Zones initiative would not
provide new money, rather it would be aimed at providing the local governments
and agencies “aid in cutting through red tape to get access to existing
resources.”<BR>No new money??<BR>How do you like that? So, the man that helped
push through the multi-trillion dollar Wall Street bailouts is not going to give
one red cent to the nation’s poorest and most needy people. Instead, he is going
to do whatever he can to eliminate the rules that keep voracious corporations
from feeding at the public trough.<BR>Conservative Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky — “praised the proposed Promise Zone for Eastern Kentucky
saying:<BR></STRONG></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=4><STRONG>“I wrote a letter last year supporting this
designation because this region has suffered enormous economic hardship over
the last several years,” McConnell said in a
statement.”<BR></STRONG></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=4><STRONG>Mitch McConnell
likes Obama’s plan. That says it all, doesn’t it?<BR>Plantations were a familiar
feature of the antebellum South, but were abandoned following the Civil War. Now
a new generation of corporate kleptocrats want to revive the tradition. They
think that weakening consumer demand and persistent stagnation can only be
overcome by skirting vital labor protections and shifting more of the cost of
production onto workers. Obama’s promise zones provide a way for big business to
slip the chains of “onerous” regulations and restore, what many CEO’s believe to
be, the Natural Order, that is, a Darwinian, dog-eat-dog world where only the
strongest and most cunning survive. This is a world in which Obama has done
quite well, although he’s had to distance himself from his political base and
throw friends under the bus (Jeremiah Wright) in his relentless climb to the
top. Even so, selling out has never been an issue for Obama.<BR>Special economic
zones are not a new idea, in fact, they’ve been tried in the UK, Australia and
other places where the global bank cartel exerts its grip. In Tokyo, last month,
right-wing PM, Shinzo Abe announced the launching of his own “Special Economic
Zones”. Here’s a short summary of Abe’s plan from an article in the Japan
Times:<BR></STRONG></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=4><STRONG>“Special zones aimed at spurring corporate
investment through deregulation and tax incentives are to be created in Tokyo
as well as Osaka and central Aichi Prefecture….Other deregulation steps to
debut in such zones will let private firms operate public schools, let experts
without teaching licenses teach classes, expand the scope of treatment that
can be administered by non-Japanese doctors and nurses, facilitate the use of
foreign drugs and increase the number of hospital beds.” (Japan
Times)<BR></STRONG></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=4><STRONG>Sound familiar?
Deregulation, privatization, and cheap labor; the toxic coctail that has
vaporized the US middle class and wiped out a good portion of the developing
world.<BR>Obama calls these promise zones. We think corporate plantations is a
more fitting moniker.<BR><EM>MIKE WHITNEY</EM> <EM>lives in Washington
state. He is a contributor to <A href="" target=_blank>Hopeless: Barack
Obama and the Politics of Illusion</A> (AK Press). Hopeless is also
available in a <A href="" target=_blank>Kindle edition</A>. He can be
reached at <A
href="">fergiewhitney@msn.com</A>.</EM></STRONG></FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>