Bankers, financiers, capital markets lawyers, investors and economists---people supposedly in the know---routinely make the argument that the United States is more resilient, flexible and adaptable than any other major country in the world. America is down they say, but not out. The Americans, according to this line of thinking, will bounce back to reclaim their global economic dominance. As Clint Eastwood proclaimed in his commercial for the Super Bowl, it’s Half-Time and America will come roaring back in the second half.
The myth of American resilience---this is not about minor ups and downs in the U.S. economy---skews the vision of many observers of the global economy. Like other myths, this one is based on a combination of dated thinking and romanticism, not unlike the faith of fans that the members of an aging sports team still have the stuff to re-live their glory days and win the title.
The truth about America is that it is anything but flexible and resilient and faces a range of obstacles that portend decline (not collapse) rather than a creative re-birth that will re-establish its supremacy.
Where the United States was once on the cutting edge of modernity, benefitting from its conquest of a continent, its steady supply of immigrant labour, and its military victories over formidable foes, the country is now hobbled by rigidities, of which the following five are of critical importance:
1. The widening income and wealth gaps. Among the principal western countries, the U.S. is the most extreme case in terms of the income gap between the rich and the rest of the population. The gap meant that a tiny proportion of the U.S. population gained the lion’s share of the economic benefits of the past three decades, leaving the large majority of the population with few or no real gains. Indeed, on the eve of the great crash of 2008, the gap between the very rich and the rest was the same as it was in 1928 on the eve of the Great Depression. While Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s did ameliorate the severity of the Depression, it did not end it. The American economic crisis was only resolved by the entry of the United States into the Second World War following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The war generated an immense wave of job creation and industrialization in the United States; and the war left America’s chief rivals, the enemies Germany and Japan, and the allies, Britain and the Soviet Union, in a state of economic ruin.
The war did more. It opened the way for the United States to reorganize the global economy placing itself at the centre with the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the world, the latter a fact of great importance because it allowed the United States to go into debt on a scale that would have been impossible for any other country. In addition, winning the war strengthened American labour and the American trade union movement. The full employment economics of the post-war decades and the muscle of organized labour meant that the real income of American wage and salary earners (adjusted for inflation) doubled between 1950 and 1970. The earnings gap between the rich and rest shrank appreciably during these decades.
Following the oil price shocks of the 1970s and the miserable effects of stagflation, the door opened to the age of neo-liberalism, globalization, de-regulation, and the loss of bargaining power for organized labour. The consequence was the onset of the new earnings gap that peaked at the onset of the crash of 2008.
An economy in which productivity gains push up the incomes of those at the very top, while leaving the rest with no appreciable gains, suffers from a dearth of purchasing power. The mass of the population accumulates ever more debt in this bubble-prone economy. For the swollen financial sector, which accounted for 22 per cent of the U.S. GDP on the eve of the crash, speculation to pounce on quick gains, became the name of the game.
2. The Costs of Empire. As was the case with earlier empires, the Americans bore the costs of imperial overstretch in two ways. The first, the more obvious of the two ways, has been through immense military spending. Today, the U.S. accounts for about half of all the military spending in the world. In addition to regular military outlays to maintain and upgrade the American military establishment, there has been the expenditure of about two trillion dollars to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Steep military outlays at a time when there is immense resistance to paying higher taxes among upper income earners has exacerbated the crisis of state indebtedness in the U.S.
The second cost of imperial overstretch is discussed much less often although it is perhaps even more important than the first.
As was the case with former empires, notably the British and the Roman, American economic dominance allowed the United States to farm out its production of a wide range of goods to countries where the cost of labour was much lower. Crucially, in recent decades, this has allowed the American people to share in the bounty of “cheap stuff” being imported into the country. While China was the primary point of origin for these imports, there were many additional sources in other low wage countries. This was a double-edged sword. It meant that outlets such as Walmart offered cheap imported manufactured products, and that U.S. and other multinational corporations made vast profits producing goods where labour costs were low.
It also meant, however, that American domestic manufacturing which had once been dominant in the world, was hollowed out on a stupendous scale. In 1970, as West German and Japanese imports flowed into the United States, the U.S. ran a deficit in its trade in manufactured products for the first time in the 20th century. Since then, the U.S. manufacturing trade deficit has grown ever larger (it shrank sharply in the aftermath of the crash in 2008 but has begun to expand once again) so that it now amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
In 1980, the share of the U.S. GDP accounted for by manufacturing was close to 20 per cent. By 2008, this proportion had shrunk to 12 per cent, an alarmingly low proportion for a nation that had once been the world’s industrial powerhouse. One dramatic consequence of the hollowing out of American industry has been the decimation of the jobs and incomes of the American working class, especially working class men, who once could earn an income that could support a family, and no longer can.
Britain, the world’s first industrial power, had also followed the same trajectory. Even in the mid 19th century, when British industry reached its zenith, the nation’s manufacturers were involved in a struggle for primacy with the financial elite, the bankers and financiers of the City of London. By the end of the 19th century, in what has been called the second industrial revolution, that involved science, steel, and chemicals among other industries, British manufacturing lost its dominance to German industry and particularly to American industry.
What dealt a near-fatal blow to what remained of British manufacturing came in the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom. First elected to power in 1979, the Thatcher government initiated an experiment in monetarism that squeezed inflation out of the British economy but had the effect of hurling the country into a severe recession. During that recession, scores of manufacturing establishments closed in Britain, never to re-open. Under Thatcher, finance won its final victory. The United Kingdom had been reduced to having an economy that was based on finance in the City of London and North Sea oil. For all intents and purposes, industry was dead. As was the case with the Americans, the position of British finance in the global economy allowed the British people to enjoy the fruits of cheap imports, from China and other countries. But the British working class paid the price of lost industrial jobs. And with the crash in 2008, the position of British finance in the global economy was placed in grave jeopardy.
The Romans, as the Republic rose to dominance across the Mediterranean, used their new-found power to import low cost products, a leading example being grain from Egypt, that had the effect of driving citizen farmers in Italy out of business. Those farmers had been the backbone of the Roman army. They were the main source of plebian political power in the republic. As cheap Egyptian grain drove farmers off the land, tens of thousands of them flooded into the city of Rome, where they became dependent on food provided for them by the republic. These were the Roman citizens, relocated in the mushrooming metropolis, who were bought off by the “bread and circuses” of the patricians who sought political power for themselves. Rising patrician stars such as Julius Caesar and Pompey spent vast sums to feed and entertain the urban masses to win their votes when they ran for positions such as Consul. This was plutocracy with a flair that the American plutocrats have not yet matched. In the United States, plutocratic politicians such as Mitt Romney stick to purchasing huge swaths of time on the media to drown their opponents in abuse and to advance their own meager talents. In Rome, plebians were treated not only to repeated repasts but also to the pleasure of watching gladiators or animals tear human foes apart. During this last phase of the disintegrating Roman Republic, the army whose legions had once been composed of citizen soldiers, became a professional force. Over the long-term, the Roman Empire, successor to the Republic, was forced to bring infusions of Germans and other foreigners into the ranks of the army, first as individuals and later as whole legions. Rome’s inability to feed itself, and its reliance on cheap imports, along with the loss of its citizen farmers, were not reversible processes.
It is one thing for great industrial states such as Britain and the United States to use their prowess when they are peak of their power to flood their own domestic markets with cheap imports. It is quite another thing to re-industrialize once industry has gone. It is theoretically possible, but exceptionally difficult, involving as it inexorably would a steep drop in the average standard of living in the country.
3. Crumbling Education. One of the great strengths of the rising American Republic was the quality of its public education. The mass of white children received an education, paid for by the state that allowed American white youths to enter the labour force ready to learn how to cope with skilled or semi-skilled jobs. Two great changes have occurred. The level of education required to do all but unskilled jobs, of which there are now millions at low levels of pay, is much higher than before in an age of advanced technology. The other enormous change is that millions of affluent families have abandoned the public educational system, which has been allowed to crumble, to one degree or another across the United States. (Since education is a state responsibility, there are important differences in the effectiveness of public education from state to state.) As the affluent have fled from public education, the effectiveness of American education has dropped dramatically in relation to education in other advanced countries. In terms of literacy, numeracy and other measures, American children rank near the bottom in comparison to children in other advanced countries as tests scores reveal.
4. Ideological Blinders. It is not surprising that the most influential sections of American society are highly resistant to fundamental change. Such behaviour has been the norm among the leading elements of successful empires throughout the ages. Those who have the most to lose from fundamental change are the same people who have gained immensely from the success of their empires. The very success of an empire, whose rise was due to genuine flexibility and innovation, breeds resistance to change when the empire has reached its peak and even more so as it begins its decline.
The process of shutting out the real world and its challenges in favour of the repetition of ideological homilies that once reflected innovative thought, but now are a barrier to it, is far advanced in the United States. Before them the rulers of the Chinese, Roman, Spanish, Russian, French and British empires behaved in the same way. They repeated soothing formulas---incantations from the past---which speeded them on their way into decline.
Affluent Americans who fear change, from within their own society and from a world in which the U.S. share of global economic output has shrunk from fifty per cent in 1945, to twenty per cent today, are inclined to seek the truths of the Founding Fathers of the American Republic to steer them on the stormy seas of the 21st century.
The emergence of the Tea Party has been the most visible recent case of a populist re-affirmation of the American civic religion that is rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The verities of individualism, free enterprise and the limited state are at the heart of this explosion on the political right. The idealized capitalism of the Tea Party conjures up an image of American society, not from the era of the American Revolution, but from the 1840s and 1850s. It is housed in a hazy vision of a small town, laissez faire capitalism, before the rise of the great conglomerates such as Standard Oil, U.S. Steel and J.P. Morgan in the decades following the Civil War.
The trouble with the reified thinking of the adherents of the Tea Party, the populist right more generally and the Republican Party is that it denies empire, global enterprise and finance-centred capitalism, the essential realities of our age.
5. Formidable Challengers. Everyone looks to China as posing the greatest challenge to American global dominance. China is indeed, the principal, but by no means the only challenger to American hegemony. China’s economic rise, its development of a capitalist model in which the state plays major, if chaotic, roles is of immense importance to all of humanity. Not least, this is for reasons of sheer scale. When twenty per cent of the human race, over one billion people, go through unprecedented transformations, the consequences of success or failure, indeed the kinds of success or failure, are colossal.
Several hundred million people in China are living in varying degrees of affluence. Hundreds of millions more still live at a subsistence level. From the vastness of this larger China come about one hundred and thirty million rural workers who move in and out of the country’s wage economy as conditions change.
The rise of enormous new powers always contains the risk of social explosion, wars both civil and against external enemies, and the immense danger of collapse. All of these possibilities are present in China today. The governing Communist Party, once a force for revolution, is now an empty vessel, whose sole purpose is to retain power and privilege for its leading cohorts. It is a party without vision, subject under pressure to a descent into strident nationalism exclusionism and expansionism.
A useful way to look at the U.S.-China economic relationship is to understand it as a single, volatile and quickly evolving single system. The U.S. and China have a symbiotic relationship. The U.S. provides a vast consumer market for Chinese exports. (U.S. imports from China fell from $337.8 billion in 2008 to $296.4 billion in 2009 and the U.S. trade deficit with China declined by just over $40 billion that year. As a consequence of the economic crash, in particular the severe slump in Chinese exports, about 20 million migrant workers lost their jobs by the winter of 2009. In 2010, U.S. imports from China bounced back up to $364.9 billion.) Because of the extent of the U.S. trade deficit with China (it was $273.1 billion in 2010) and the extent of U.S. direct investments in China ($22.2 billion in 2006 compared with $600 million in total Chinese direct investments in the U.S. that year), China has a vast pool of U.S. dollar holdings (in U.S. government and institutional bonds). In 2011, China’s foreign exchange reserves (their size is classified as a state secret in China), the highest exchange reserves in the world, totaled about $3 trillion, about sixty per cent of the reserves made up of U.S holdings.
The huge imbalance in trade between the U.S. and China creates enormous problems for both countries. The gigantic U.S. manufacturing trade deficit with China (and other countries) has resulted in the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs in the United States over the past decade. It needs to be noted in relation to this, that the U.S.-China trade relationship is complex. While about 37 per cent of China’s GDP is accounted for by exports, net exports accounted for only about 12 per cent of China’s GDP. This is because China’s exports have imbedded within them enormous imports to make them possible. Huge imports of capital equipment and parts and components into China feed into the final manufacture of products in China. Americans import goods from China that have been partially produced elsewhere including the United States itself.
While China has built up huge reserves of dollar holdings, China desperately needs to recycle these dollars through direct investments in the U.S. and by purchasing U.S. bonds. Seen as a single system, the U.S. represents the consuming side and China the savings side. One side cannot exist without the other.
But it is a dynamic system whose motion brings with it potential crises both economic and geopolitical.
How China evolves, bringing an ever larger proportion of its population into affluence and the mainstream of global capitalism will have a huge impact on the future of the world. Internal social upheavals, already visible in labour struggles and protests that often go largely unreported in the rest of the world, are already occurring in China. They are an inevitable consequence of the wrenching changes through which the country is passing.
These changes will generate pressures, which may open the country to wider social and political dialogue and greater degrees of popular decision making or may generate an even harsher dictatorship that seeks legitimacy through nationalism and expansionism.
The United States and other powers will undoubtedly affect the process of Chinese development. If the American political leadership responds fearfully to China’s rise, in part as a way to deal with America’s own social chasms, China will be pressured in one direction. If American leaders conclude that the United States and China have symbiotic economies in which the United States provides a vast market for Chinese products, while China helps stave off insolvency for the United States through the purchase of its financial instruments, China will be pushed in another direction.
Above all, the relationship between the United States and China is highly unstable, subject to constant changes. As China’s internal market grows larger and as the cost of Chinese labour rises, China will have less need for the American market. As China develops, the capacity of the United States to afford Chinese imports on such a flagrant scale will decline. This may force at least the partial re-industrialization of the United States, under conditions that will be far from favourable.
Other potential challengers to U.S. economic hegemony include India, Japan, Brazil and even Europe when it finally succeeds in making the transition to a European state that involves much more than a single currency.
To sum up, the 21st century will not be an American century as the 19th and 20th centuries were. The United States will, of course, remain a substantial power. It will, however, be subjected to the immense pressures that confront a declining empire. The cleavages within American society include the very wide gaps between the very rich and the rest of the population and the realities of a country undergoing vast demographic shifts. By the middle of the 21st century, it is estimated that 90 million of the 360 million Americans, will be of Hispanic origin, the large majority of Hispanics living in the crescent of states that once were part of Mexico. By 2050, fifteen per cent of the U.S. population is projected to be African American. A further ten per cent is projected to be made up of Asians, Pacific Islanders and native Americans. These changes mean that only one half of the American population will be composed of non-Hispanic whites, the demographic element on which the founding of the American Republic was based.
As the role of the United States in the global economy continues to decline, the U.S. will be pushed down the ladder of the global division of labour. This will bring the era of “cheap stuff” from abroad for Americans to an end, with the consequence that for the mass of the American population there will be a falling standard of living at least for a time.
How Americans cope with the pressures that confront them, chaotically or relatively successfully, will have a huge effect on American society and the world. Of one thing we can be certain: those who stubbornly assert that the United States is uniquely capable of flexibility and resilience in the face of challenges are among those who are standing in the way of developing a realistic evaluation of the pressures facing the United States. They are part of the American problem, not the solution.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Stephen Harper’s Majority Government: Not Looking Out for YOU
As we close in on one year of Stephen Harper’s majority, it is evident that this is a very special government. YOU are just not on its list of priorities.
It’s not that this government does not have causes to which it is deeply committed: low taxes for business and the wealthy; the petroleum industry; military might; and prisons. If these are the government’s positives, its negatives follow directly from them.
Keeping taxes low for the wealthy means holding down social, health, and educational spending. The Minister of Health is not there to promote programs that would enhance health care, but to assure people that the Canada Health Act remains in place and that all will be well under the government’s unilaterally imposed funding formula. The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs is there to make the case that the problems at Attawapiskat can be addressed by sending in a well-paid accountant-manager.
Keeping the government payroll to a minimum requires weakening unions, and maintaining a steady level of abusive comment against those who work in the public sector as overpaid, too secure and generally pampered, always a useful diversion at a time when people are figuring out how massively remunerated and under taxed the wealthy are. The Minister of Labour has the twin tasks of opposing unions and backing employers who want to shed labour, and hold down wages and salaries.
Promoting petroleum means pushing up exports, which can only be achieved through the massive development of the Alberta oil sands. Petroleum is the sector to which this Alberta-centred regime has its closest ties. What’s good for the oil sands is bad for the environment. Therefore, keeping environmental commitments as light as possible is a key goal, partially achieved through a constant barrage against environmentalists as job killers, and occasionally in moments of excessive overreach, as billionaire American socialists. In Harper-speak, oil sands greenhouse gas emissions are converted into manna from heaven. The Minister of the Environment has the job of promoting reverse alchemy: explaining how using clean water and natural gas to produce dirty oil is environmentally sound---good for us all, planetary cod liver oil.
Expanding military might necessitates the building of F 35s and frigates, the price of admission for Canada into the Anglo-sphere. When Anglo-America next goes to war in the Middle East or Central Asia, the Harperites are determined to be there. They missed out on Iraq through no fault of their own, but inherited a military mission from the Liberals in Afghanistan, made it into Libya and are getting ready for Iran. Harper government ministers believe in hard power, the kind that kills. They are prepared to leave soft power to countries whose governments think a seat on the UN Security Council is actually worth something.
New prisons, along with F 35s and frigates, are as close to an industrial policy as the Conservatives allow themselves to get. Such spending forms solid links with major corporations, creates jobs of the kind that are especially good for photo-ops and provides a back door form of economic stimulus. This spending also plays to the central Conservative conviction that the human race is naturally divided into three cohorts: entrepreneurs (nature’s fittest); wage and salary earners (nature’s drones); and external and internal bad actors (nature’s refuse). As social Darwinists, the Conservatives believe the first cohort does well with the carrot and the second responds well to the stick. In the absence of Social Drainol, the denizens of the third cohort should be eliminated or put behind bars.
If you are not among the very few on the Conservative positive list----entrepreneurs, oil company execs, corporate lawyers, defence contractors, hedge fund managers---then you are either a problem to be controlled or of no account. Actually, there is one additional grouping into which you might fall, that of non-wealthy potential Conservative voters. This is an important demographic, because even though the Harperites have succeeded in driving down voter turnout through their insistence that governments do nothing for you, there aren’t enough privileged people to elect the Conservatives. For non fat-cat Conservative voters there are causes to which Conservative politicians are allowed to lend support----among them, the elimination of the long gun registry, hints that an anti-abortion campaign could be restarted, suggestions that suicide materials could be provided for murderers in prison, and cuts to arts and CBC funding to flip the bird to effete Torontonians.
The Harper government cares about as much for YOU as Rome’s rulers cared for the Vandals, who were, by the way a perfectly decent ethnic minority who were slurred by the Romans.
It’s not that this government does not have causes to which it is deeply committed: low taxes for business and the wealthy; the petroleum industry; military might; and prisons. If these are the government’s positives, its negatives follow directly from them.
Keeping taxes low for the wealthy means holding down social, health, and educational spending. The Minister of Health is not there to promote programs that would enhance health care, but to assure people that the Canada Health Act remains in place and that all will be well under the government’s unilaterally imposed funding formula. The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs is there to make the case that the problems at Attawapiskat can be addressed by sending in a well-paid accountant-manager.
Keeping the government payroll to a minimum requires weakening unions, and maintaining a steady level of abusive comment against those who work in the public sector as overpaid, too secure and generally pampered, always a useful diversion at a time when people are figuring out how massively remunerated and under taxed the wealthy are. The Minister of Labour has the twin tasks of opposing unions and backing employers who want to shed labour, and hold down wages and salaries.
Promoting petroleum means pushing up exports, which can only be achieved through the massive development of the Alberta oil sands. Petroleum is the sector to which this Alberta-centred regime has its closest ties. What’s good for the oil sands is bad for the environment. Therefore, keeping environmental commitments as light as possible is a key goal, partially achieved through a constant barrage against environmentalists as job killers, and occasionally in moments of excessive overreach, as billionaire American socialists. In Harper-speak, oil sands greenhouse gas emissions are converted into manna from heaven. The Minister of the Environment has the job of promoting reverse alchemy: explaining how using clean water and natural gas to produce dirty oil is environmentally sound---good for us all, planetary cod liver oil.
Expanding military might necessitates the building of F 35s and frigates, the price of admission for Canada into the Anglo-sphere. When Anglo-America next goes to war in the Middle East or Central Asia, the Harperites are determined to be there. They missed out on Iraq through no fault of their own, but inherited a military mission from the Liberals in Afghanistan, made it into Libya and are getting ready for Iran. Harper government ministers believe in hard power, the kind that kills. They are prepared to leave soft power to countries whose governments think a seat on the UN Security Council is actually worth something.
New prisons, along with F 35s and frigates, are as close to an industrial policy as the Conservatives allow themselves to get. Such spending forms solid links with major corporations, creates jobs of the kind that are especially good for photo-ops and provides a back door form of economic stimulus. This spending also plays to the central Conservative conviction that the human race is naturally divided into three cohorts: entrepreneurs (nature’s fittest); wage and salary earners (nature’s drones); and external and internal bad actors (nature’s refuse). As social Darwinists, the Conservatives believe the first cohort does well with the carrot and the second responds well to the stick. In the absence of Social Drainol, the denizens of the third cohort should be eliminated or put behind bars.
If you are not among the very few on the Conservative positive list----entrepreneurs, oil company execs, corporate lawyers, defence contractors, hedge fund managers---then you are either a problem to be controlled or of no account. Actually, there is one additional grouping into which you might fall, that of non-wealthy potential Conservative voters. This is an important demographic, because even though the Harperites have succeeded in driving down voter turnout through their insistence that governments do nothing for you, there aren’t enough privileged people to elect the Conservatives. For non fat-cat Conservative voters there are causes to which Conservative politicians are allowed to lend support----among them, the elimination of the long gun registry, hints that an anti-abortion campaign could be restarted, suggestions that suicide materials could be provided for murderers in prison, and cuts to arts and CBC funding to flip the bird to effete Torontonians.
The Harper government cares about as much for YOU as Rome’s rulers cared for the Vandals, who were, by the way a perfectly decent ethnic minority who were slurred by the Romans.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
THE HARPER GOVERNMENT’S BOGUS CASE FOR A BORDER DEAL WITH THE UNITED STATES: CHECK OUT THE NUMBERS
Stephen Harper and Barack Obama are announcing A Canada-U.S. border deal at the White House today.
It is being presented to Canadians as an agreement that will yield greater access to the American market for Canadian exporters in return for the harmonization of Canadian security arrangements with those of the U.S. The idea is that we will benefit economically while satisfying the Americans that we are solid on the all-important issue, for them, of national security.
The Harper government makes case that the deal is necessary because Canadian exports have been and are being hampered by the thickening of the border since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The case that Canadian exports to the U.S. have been harmed since 9/11 as a consequence of the implementation of new American security measures at the border is entirely bogus.
Let’s examine the facts:
In 2000, Canada exported US$230.8 billion worth of goods to the United States. In 2001, the year of the terror attacks, Canadian exports to the U.S. declined to US$216.2 billion. In 2002, there was a further decline in the export total to US$209.1 billion. The following year, however, the decline in Canadian exports to the United States halted and from 2003 through 2008, exports to the U.S. increased dramatically. In 2003, exports were worth US$221 billion; in 2004, US$256.3 billion, well above the total in 2000. In 2005, Canadian exports to the U.S. soared to US$290.3 billion, sixty billion dollars higher than the total for 2000. From there, the upward progress of Canadian exports to the United States continued unabated-----to US$302.4 billion in 2006 and US$317.1 billion in 2007, reaching a record high of US$339.4 billion in 2008. At this point, Canadian exports to the United States had soared by more than one hundred billion dollars a year above the figure for 2000. Clearly American security arrangements at the border were not holding Canadian exports in check.
In 2009, however, the value of Canadian exports to the U.S. plunged by US$113 billion dollars, to a total of US$226.2 billion, a savage drop that had vast implications for the future of the Canadian economy.
The reason for the plunge, of course, had everything to do with the great economic crash of 2008. It had absolutely nothing to do with post 9/11 U.S. security arrangements at the border.
In 2010, Canadian exports to the U.S. climbed back to US$277.6 billion, up just over fifty billion dollars from the previous year, but still over sixty billion dollars less than in 2008. While the pace of Canada’s exports to the U.S. was somewhat higher for the first half of 2011 than in the same months of 2010, the slowing pace of U.S. growth in the second half of 2011 threatens the level of demand for Canadian commodities. (The falling price of oil and the drop in the value of the Canadian dollar reflect the market’s assessment of these trends.)
When we examine the exports of Canadian products, overwhelmingly to the U.S., sector by sector, the picture becomes even clearer. The value of energy exports peaked in 2008 at C$125.7 billion. In 2010, energy exports were worth C$90.8 billion. The falling price of oil threatens to prevent a recovery in this sector. The export of automotive products peaked in 2006 at C$81.9 billion. In 2009, the export of automotive products had plunged to C$43 billion, recovering somewhat to C$56.8 billion in 2010. Exports of industrial goods and materials, made up of metals, metal ores, chemicals, plastics, fertilizers etc. peaked at C$111.3 billion in 2008, dropping sharply to C$79.1 billion in 2009 and recovering to C$96.5 billion in 2010. Forest products exports were at C$33.4 billion in 2006, plunging to C$19.5 billion in 2009 and recovering somewhat to C$21.9 billion in 2010.
While Canada has continued to have a positive balance of trade with the U.S., the Canadian surplus has plunged from a peak of US$78.3 billion in 2008 to US$21.6 billion in 2009 and US$28.5 billion in 2010. That dramatic decline has led to Canada running an overall trade deficit in goods with the rest of the world as a whole, something which has been very rare in previous decades. The overall impact of this shift is reflected in what has happened to Canada’s Current Account (balance of international payments). In 2006, Canada had a surplus in its Current Account (with the rest of the world) of C$20.5 billion. The following two years the Current Account remained in surplus, C$12.8 billion in 2007 and C$5.3 billion in 2008. Then came the plunge to a Current Account deficit of C$45.2 billion in 2009 and C$50.9 billion in 2010.
The weakness of the U.S. economy has led to the dramatic results spelled out above.
Canada is at a crossroads in its economic course, a critical historical moment. And there is precious little relevant attention to this among politicians in all political parties and the media to these developments.
The Harper government’s strategy is to promote tar sands exports and the construction of a pipeline to carry tar sands oil to be refined south of the border. Along with this, the Harperites are pushing a comprehensive border deal with the United States. The deal to be unveiled in a few weeks includes plans to share security-related information about Canadian citizens and residents with American security agencies. For the deal to be implemented, according to a report released by the Rideau Institute, “Canadian privacy laws will need to be violated or weakened”. At stake is Canadian sovereignty as Canada takes a giant step toward inclusion within an American continental security perimeter.
The Harper government will attempt to sell this agreement as necessary for Canada to enhance its exports to the U.S.
As has been shown here, the weakening of Canadian exports to the U.S. has everything to do with the economic crisis in which the United States now finds itself and nothing to do with the security measures being taken at the border by the U.S. since 9/11.
The border deal will share information about Canadians with Uncle Sam, making it more likely that in the future there will be additional tragedies such as the one that befell Mahar Arar in 2002. The Americans still have not taken Arar off their watch list.
What we urgently need is a debate about Canada’s economic future. The Harper government is leading us into a dead end, emphasizing tar sands exports and an intensified effort to bet our future on the markets for Canadian commodities south of the border. For this country to succeed in the 21st century, Canadians need to face the twin realities of climate change and peak oil. Canada will succeed or fail depending on how it faces the challenges of rebuilding our cities, transportation systems and energy delivery systems. We need to establish new industries in a host of fields and to rethink our trading strategy with the rest of the world, not betting everything on deals with the Americans.
Instead of fostering the needed debate, the Harper government is tying us every more tightly aboard the chariot of a declining superpower.
It is being presented to Canadians as an agreement that will yield greater access to the American market for Canadian exporters in return for the harmonization of Canadian security arrangements with those of the U.S. The idea is that we will benefit economically while satisfying the Americans that we are solid on the all-important issue, for them, of national security.
The Harper government makes case that the deal is necessary because Canadian exports have been and are being hampered by the thickening of the border since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The case that Canadian exports to the U.S. have been harmed since 9/11 as a consequence of the implementation of new American security measures at the border is entirely bogus.
Let’s examine the facts:
In 2000, Canada exported US$230.8 billion worth of goods to the United States. In 2001, the year of the terror attacks, Canadian exports to the U.S. declined to US$216.2 billion. In 2002, there was a further decline in the export total to US$209.1 billion. The following year, however, the decline in Canadian exports to the United States halted and from 2003 through 2008, exports to the U.S. increased dramatically. In 2003, exports were worth US$221 billion; in 2004, US$256.3 billion, well above the total in 2000. In 2005, Canadian exports to the U.S. soared to US$290.3 billion, sixty billion dollars higher than the total for 2000. From there, the upward progress of Canadian exports to the United States continued unabated-----to US$302.4 billion in 2006 and US$317.1 billion in 2007, reaching a record high of US$339.4 billion in 2008. At this point, Canadian exports to the United States had soared by more than one hundred billion dollars a year above the figure for 2000. Clearly American security arrangements at the border were not holding Canadian exports in check.
In 2009, however, the value of Canadian exports to the U.S. plunged by US$113 billion dollars, to a total of US$226.2 billion, a savage drop that had vast implications for the future of the Canadian economy.
The reason for the plunge, of course, had everything to do with the great economic crash of 2008. It had absolutely nothing to do with post 9/11 U.S. security arrangements at the border.
In 2010, Canadian exports to the U.S. climbed back to US$277.6 billion, up just over fifty billion dollars from the previous year, but still over sixty billion dollars less than in 2008. While the pace of Canada’s exports to the U.S. was somewhat higher for the first half of 2011 than in the same months of 2010, the slowing pace of U.S. growth in the second half of 2011 threatens the level of demand for Canadian commodities. (The falling price of oil and the drop in the value of the Canadian dollar reflect the market’s assessment of these trends.)
When we examine the exports of Canadian products, overwhelmingly to the U.S., sector by sector, the picture becomes even clearer. The value of energy exports peaked in 2008 at C$125.7 billion. In 2010, energy exports were worth C$90.8 billion. The falling price of oil threatens to prevent a recovery in this sector. The export of automotive products peaked in 2006 at C$81.9 billion. In 2009, the export of automotive products had plunged to C$43 billion, recovering somewhat to C$56.8 billion in 2010. Exports of industrial goods and materials, made up of metals, metal ores, chemicals, plastics, fertilizers etc. peaked at C$111.3 billion in 2008, dropping sharply to C$79.1 billion in 2009 and recovering to C$96.5 billion in 2010. Forest products exports were at C$33.4 billion in 2006, plunging to C$19.5 billion in 2009 and recovering somewhat to C$21.9 billion in 2010.
While Canada has continued to have a positive balance of trade with the U.S., the Canadian surplus has plunged from a peak of US$78.3 billion in 2008 to US$21.6 billion in 2009 and US$28.5 billion in 2010. That dramatic decline has led to Canada running an overall trade deficit in goods with the rest of the world as a whole, something which has been very rare in previous decades. The overall impact of this shift is reflected in what has happened to Canada’s Current Account (balance of international payments). In 2006, Canada had a surplus in its Current Account (with the rest of the world) of C$20.5 billion. The following two years the Current Account remained in surplus, C$12.8 billion in 2007 and C$5.3 billion in 2008. Then came the plunge to a Current Account deficit of C$45.2 billion in 2009 and C$50.9 billion in 2010.
The weakness of the U.S. economy has led to the dramatic results spelled out above.
Canada is at a crossroads in its economic course, a critical historical moment. And there is precious little relevant attention to this among politicians in all political parties and the media to these developments.
The Harper government’s strategy is to promote tar sands exports and the construction of a pipeline to carry tar sands oil to be refined south of the border. Along with this, the Harperites are pushing a comprehensive border deal with the United States. The deal to be unveiled in a few weeks includes plans to share security-related information about Canadian citizens and residents with American security agencies. For the deal to be implemented, according to a report released by the Rideau Institute, “Canadian privacy laws will need to be violated or weakened”. At stake is Canadian sovereignty as Canada takes a giant step toward inclusion within an American continental security perimeter.
The Harper government will attempt to sell this agreement as necessary for Canada to enhance its exports to the U.S.
As has been shown here, the weakening of Canadian exports to the U.S. has everything to do with the economic crisis in which the United States now finds itself and nothing to do with the security measures being taken at the border by the U.S. since 9/11.
The border deal will share information about Canadians with Uncle Sam, making it more likely that in the future there will be additional tragedies such as the one that befell Mahar Arar in 2002. The Americans still have not taken Arar off their watch list.
What we urgently need is a debate about Canada’s economic future. The Harper government is leading us into a dead end, emphasizing tar sands exports and an intensified effort to bet our future on the markets for Canadian commodities south of the border. For this country to succeed in the 21st century, Canadians need to face the twin realities of climate change and peak oil. Canada will succeed or fail depending on how it faces the challenges of rebuilding our cities, transportation systems and energy delivery systems. We need to establish new industries in a host of fields and to rethink our trading strategy with the rest of the world, not betting everything on deals with the Americans.
Instead of fostering the needed debate, the Harper government is tying us every more tightly aboard the chariot of a declining superpower.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
THE HARPER GOVERNMENT’S BOGUS CASE FOR A BORDER DEAL WITH THE UNITED STATES
The Harper government has been negotiating a comprehensive border deal with the United States. It is being presented to Canadians as an agreement that will yield greater access to the American market for Canadian exporters in return for the harmonization of Canadian security arrangements with those of the U.S. The idea is that we will benefit economically while satisfying the Americans that we are solid on the all-important issue, for them, of national security.
The Harper government makes case that the deal is necessary because Canadian exports have been and are being hampered by the thickening of the border since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The case that Canadian exports to the U.S. have been harmed since 9/11 as a consequence of the implementation of new American security measures at the border is entirely bogus.
Let’s examine the facts:
In 2000, Canada exported US$230.8 billion worth of goods to the United States. In 2001, the year of the terror attacks, Canadian exports to the U.S. declined to US$216.2 billion. In 2002, there was a further decline in the export total to US$209.1 billion. The following year, however, the decline in Canadian exports to the United States halted and from 2003 through 2008, exports to the U.S. increased dramatically. In 2003, exports were worth US$221 billion; in 2004, US$256.3 billion, well above the total in 2000. In 2005, Canadian exports to the U.S. soared to US$290.3 billion, sixty billion dollars higher than the total for 2000. From there, the upward progress of Canadian exports to the United States continued unabated-----to US$302.4 billion in 2006 and US$317.1 billion in 2007, reaching a record high of US$339.4 billion in 2008. At this point, Canadian exports to the United States had soared by more than one hundred billion dollars a year above the figure for 2000. Clearly American security arrangements at the border were not holding Canadian exports in check.
In 2009, however, the value of Canadian exports to the U.S. plunged by US$113 billion dollars, to a total of US$226.2 billion, a savage drop that had vast implications for the future of the Canadian economy.
The reason for the plunge, of course, had everything to do with the great economic crash of 2008. It had absolutely nothing to do with post 9/11 U.S. security arrangements at the border.
In 2010, Canadian exports to the U.S. climbed back to US$277.6 billion, up just over fifty billion dollars from the previous year, but still over sixty billion dollars less than in 2008. While the pace of Canada’s exports to the U.S. was somewhat higher for the first half of 2011 than in the same months of 2010, the slowing pace of U.S. growth in the second half of 2011 threatens the level of demand for Canadian commodities. (The falling price of oil and the drop in the value of the Canadian dollar reflect the market’s assessment of these trends.)
When we examine the exports of Canadian products, overwhelmingly to the U.S., sector by sector, the picture becomes even clearer. The value of energy exports peaked in 2008 at C$125.7 billion. In 2010, energy exports were worth C$90.8 billion. The falling price of oil threatens to prevent a recovery in this sector. The export of automotive products peaked in 2006 at C$81.9 billion. In 2009, the export of automotive products had plunged to C$43 billion, recovering somewhat to C$56.8 billion in 2010. Exports of industrial goods and materials, made up of metals, metal ores, chemicals, plastics, fertilizers etc. peaked at C$111.3 billion in 2008, dropping sharply to C$79.1 billion in 2009 and recovering to C$96.5 billion in 2010. Forest products exports were at C$33.4 billion in 2006, plunging to C$19.5 billion in 2009 and recovering somewhat to C$21.9 billion in 2010.
While Canada has continued to have a positive balance of trade with the U.S., the Canadian surplus has plunged from a peak of US$78.3 billion in 2008 to US$21.6 billion in 2009 and US$28.5 billion in 2010. That dramatic decline has led to Canada running an overall trade deficit in goods with the rest of the world as a whole, something which has been very rare in previous decades. The overall impact of this shift is reflected in what has happened to Canada’s Current Account (balance of international payments). In 2006, Canada had a surplus in its Current Account (with the rest of the world) of C$20.5 billion. The following two years the Current Account remained in surplus, C$12.8 billion in 2007 and C$5.3 billion in 2008. Then came the plunge to a Current Account deficit of C$45.2 billion in 2009 and C$50.9 billion in 2010.
The weakness of the U.S. economy has led to the dramatic results spelled out above.
Canada is at a crossroads in its economic course, a critical historical moment. And there is precious little relevant attention to this among politicians in all political parties and the media to these developments.
The Harper government’s strategy is to promote tar sands exports and the construction of a pipeline to carry tar sands oil to be refined south of the border. Along with this, the Harperites are pushing a comprehensive border deal with the United States. The deal to be unveiled in a few weeks includes plans to share security-related information about Canadian citizens and residents with American security agencies. For the deal to be implemented, according to a report released by the Rideau Institute, “Canadian privacy laws will need to be violated or weakened”. At stake is Canadian sovereignty as Canada takes a giant step toward inclusion within an American continental security perimeter.
The Harper government will attempt to sell this agreement as necessary for Canada to enhance its exports to the U.S.
As has been shown here, the weakening of Canadian exports to the U.S. has everything to do with the economic crisis in which the United States now finds itself and nothing to do with the security measures being taken at the border by the U.S. since 9/11.
The border deal should be scrapped.
What we urgently need is a debate about Canada’s economic future. The Harper government is leading us into a dead end, emphasizing tar sands exports and an intensified effort to bet our future on the markets for Canadian commodities south of the border. For this country to succeed in the 21st century, Canadians need to face the twin realities of climate change and peak oil. Canada will succeed or fail depending on how it faces the challenges of rebuilding our cities, transportation systems and energy delivery systems. We need to establish new industries in a host of fields and to rethink our trading strategy with the rest of the world, not betting everything on deals with the Americans.
Instead of fostering the needed debate, the Harper government is tying us every more tightly aboard the chariot of a declining superpower.
The Harper government makes case that the deal is necessary because Canadian exports have been and are being hampered by the thickening of the border since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The case that Canadian exports to the U.S. have been harmed since 9/11 as a consequence of the implementation of new American security measures at the border is entirely bogus.
Let’s examine the facts:
In 2000, Canada exported US$230.8 billion worth of goods to the United States. In 2001, the year of the terror attacks, Canadian exports to the U.S. declined to US$216.2 billion. In 2002, there was a further decline in the export total to US$209.1 billion. The following year, however, the decline in Canadian exports to the United States halted and from 2003 through 2008, exports to the U.S. increased dramatically. In 2003, exports were worth US$221 billion; in 2004, US$256.3 billion, well above the total in 2000. In 2005, Canadian exports to the U.S. soared to US$290.3 billion, sixty billion dollars higher than the total for 2000. From there, the upward progress of Canadian exports to the United States continued unabated-----to US$302.4 billion in 2006 and US$317.1 billion in 2007, reaching a record high of US$339.4 billion in 2008. At this point, Canadian exports to the United States had soared by more than one hundred billion dollars a year above the figure for 2000. Clearly American security arrangements at the border were not holding Canadian exports in check.
In 2009, however, the value of Canadian exports to the U.S. plunged by US$113 billion dollars, to a total of US$226.2 billion, a savage drop that had vast implications for the future of the Canadian economy.
The reason for the plunge, of course, had everything to do with the great economic crash of 2008. It had absolutely nothing to do with post 9/11 U.S. security arrangements at the border.
In 2010, Canadian exports to the U.S. climbed back to US$277.6 billion, up just over fifty billion dollars from the previous year, but still over sixty billion dollars less than in 2008. While the pace of Canada’s exports to the U.S. was somewhat higher for the first half of 2011 than in the same months of 2010, the slowing pace of U.S. growth in the second half of 2011 threatens the level of demand for Canadian commodities. (The falling price of oil and the drop in the value of the Canadian dollar reflect the market’s assessment of these trends.)
When we examine the exports of Canadian products, overwhelmingly to the U.S., sector by sector, the picture becomes even clearer. The value of energy exports peaked in 2008 at C$125.7 billion. In 2010, energy exports were worth C$90.8 billion. The falling price of oil threatens to prevent a recovery in this sector. The export of automotive products peaked in 2006 at C$81.9 billion. In 2009, the export of automotive products had plunged to C$43 billion, recovering somewhat to C$56.8 billion in 2010. Exports of industrial goods and materials, made up of metals, metal ores, chemicals, plastics, fertilizers etc. peaked at C$111.3 billion in 2008, dropping sharply to C$79.1 billion in 2009 and recovering to C$96.5 billion in 2010. Forest products exports were at C$33.4 billion in 2006, plunging to C$19.5 billion in 2009 and recovering somewhat to C$21.9 billion in 2010.
While Canada has continued to have a positive balance of trade with the U.S., the Canadian surplus has plunged from a peak of US$78.3 billion in 2008 to US$21.6 billion in 2009 and US$28.5 billion in 2010. That dramatic decline has led to Canada running an overall trade deficit in goods with the rest of the world as a whole, something which has been very rare in previous decades. The overall impact of this shift is reflected in what has happened to Canada’s Current Account (balance of international payments). In 2006, Canada had a surplus in its Current Account (with the rest of the world) of C$20.5 billion. The following two years the Current Account remained in surplus, C$12.8 billion in 2007 and C$5.3 billion in 2008. Then came the plunge to a Current Account deficit of C$45.2 billion in 2009 and C$50.9 billion in 2010.
The weakness of the U.S. economy has led to the dramatic results spelled out above.
Canada is at a crossroads in its economic course, a critical historical moment. And there is precious little relevant attention to this among politicians in all political parties and the media to these developments.
The Harper government’s strategy is to promote tar sands exports and the construction of a pipeline to carry tar sands oil to be refined south of the border. Along with this, the Harperites are pushing a comprehensive border deal with the United States. The deal to be unveiled in a few weeks includes plans to share security-related information about Canadian citizens and residents with American security agencies. For the deal to be implemented, according to a report released by the Rideau Institute, “Canadian privacy laws will need to be violated or weakened”. At stake is Canadian sovereignty as Canada takes a giant step toward inclusion within an American continental security perimeter.
The Harper government will attempt to sell this agreement as necessary for Canada to enhance its exports to the U.S.
As has been shown here, the weakening of Canadian exports to the U.S. has everything to do with the economic crisis in which the United States now finds itself and nothing to do with the security measures being taken at the border by the U.S. since 9/11.
The border deal should be scrapped.
What we urgently need is a debate about Canada’s economic future. The Harper government is leading us into a dead end, emphasizing tar sands exports and an intensified effort to bet our future on the markets for Canadian commodities south of the border. For this country to succeed in the 21st century, Canadians need to face the twin realities of climate change and peak oil. Canada will succeed or fail depending on how it faces the challenges of rebuilding our cities, transportation systems and energy delivery systems. We need to establish new industries in a host of fields and to rethink our trading strategy with the rest of the world, not betting everything on deals with the Americans.
Instead of fostering the needed debate, the Harper government is tying us every more tightly aboard the chariot of a declining superpower.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
TWO CENTURIES AGO: TECUMSEH’S FREEDOM SPEECH TO THE MUSCOGEE PEOPLE
On September 20, 1811, Tecumseh rode into Tuckhabatchee, in present day Alabama, the capital of the Muscogee people. Twenty warriors, members the Shawnee, Kickapoo and Winnebago nations, rode with him. The last months of a tense peace between the United States and the native peoples led by Tecumseh were quickly passing. And the U.S. and Britain were well down the path to war.
Thousands of people watched the dramatic arrival of Tecumseh and his followers. Tuckhabatchee was overflowing with visitors and residents who were in town for the meeting of the Muscogee national council. Big Warrior, Hopoithle Miko and other important chiefs were in attendance. Long time North Carolina politician Benjamin Hawkins, the agent of the U.S. government appointed to the Muscogee nation, came to Tuckhabatchee to serve as the eyes and ears of Washington and to speak up for U.S. interests. A number of white traders were also on hand as well as representatives from the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee tribes, and even some from the Seminole nation, whose people hailed from south of the U.S. border in Spanish-ruled Florida.
The Muscogee people lived in settlements in what became Alabama and Mississippi, building their towns along the rivers and creeks of that lush territory. Because their settlements were located next to rivers and creeks, whites called the Muscogees the Creeks. Tuckhabatchee was strategically located at the junction of the Tallapoosa and Coosa Rivers.
There was great anticipation in the town about what Tecumseh, the famous Shawnee chief, would say when he addressed them. When he arrived in Tuckhabatchee, he was nearing the end of a journey that had taken him on a long arc from north to south across America organizing the native Confederacy whose purpose was to halt the acquisition of yet more native land by American settlers. He had reason to believe that his message would be well received, by many but not all, in Tuckhabatchee. Although, he came from the distant Ohio country with its markedly different terrain, Tecumseh had personal ties to the Muscogee that made this visit a homecoming as well as a diplomatic venture to win over peoples that were not his own.
Tecumseh stayed at the council for a number of days, but as long as U.S. Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins remained in town, he refrained from speaking. He had no intention of sharing his message to the Muscogee council with a representative of the United States government. Each day, Tecumseh remarked laconically that “the sun has gone too far today. I will make my talk tomorrow.” More than a week passed before Hawkins departed. The same evening, with a large multitude gathered, Tecumseh entered the council house and offered a wampum bag and a peace pipe to Big Warrior. Big Warrior smoked before he passed the peace pipe to the other chiefs. Tecumseh stood before the assemblage for a few minutes, looking over the crowd, before he began to speak. Accompanying Tecumseh that memorable evening as he had throughout his long tour was Sikaboo, his interpreter. Sikaboo was a proficient linguist, who spoke Muskogean, Choctaw, and English, in addition to Shawnee. When Tecumseh spoke to a crowd or negotiated with American or British political or military leaders, he did so in Shawnee. His knowledge of English was very limited, and he rarely attempted to speak to whites in their language.
There is no record of Tecumseh’s speech in Tuckhabatchee but he had been delivering essentially the same set of remarks on a number of occasions during his tour. We do have a record of his words spoken a few months later, and that gives us a good idea of what he had to say to the Muscogee national council.
Tecumseh was a masterful performer, who punctuated his remarks, with theatrical gestures. He used rhetoric to drive home the points he made and to leave an indelible impression on his listeners.
“Brothers----We all belong to the same family; we are all children of the Great Spirit; we walk in the same path; slake our thirst at the same spring; and now affairs of the greatest concern lead us to smoke the pipe around the same council fire.
“Brothers---We are friends; we must assist each other to bear our burdens. The blood of many of our fathers and brothers has run like water on the ground, to satisfy the avarice of the white men. We, ourselves, are threatened with a great evil; nothing will pacify them but the destruction of all the red men.
“Brothers---When the white men first set foot on our grounds, they were hungry; they had no place on which to spread their blankets, or to kindle their fires. They were feeble; they could do nothing for themselves. Our fathers commiserated their distress, and shared freely with them whatever the Great Spirit had given his red children. They gave them food when hungry, medicine when sick, spread skins for them to sleep on, and gave them grounds, that they might hunt and raise corn.
“Brothers---The white men are like poisonous serpents: when chilled, they are feeble and harmless; but invigorate them with warmth, and they sting their benefactors to death. The white people came to us feeble; and now we have made them strong, they wish to kill us, or drive us back, as they would wolves and panthers.
“Brothers---The white men are not friends to the Indians: at first they only asked for land sufficient for a wigwam; now, nothing will satisfy them but the whole of our hunting grounds, from the rising of the setting sun.
“Brothers---The white men want more than our hunting grounds; they wish to kill our warriors; they would even kill our old men, women, and little ones.”
“…..Brothers----We must be united; we must smoke the same pipe; we must fight each other’s battles; and more than all, we must love the Great Spirit; he is for us; he will destroy our enemies and make his red children happy.”
We do know that in his stirring address at Tuckhabatchee, Tecumseh drew on his close ties to the Muscogee people. “Oh, Muscogees!” he shouted. “Brethren of my mother! Brush from your eyelids the sleep of slavery, and strike for vengeance and your country!”
When the Shawnee Chief called on his audience to join him in the struggle and spoke of his ties with them, the effect was overwhelming. A thousand warriors raised their tomahawks in the air.
All through Tecumseh’s address, Big Warrior sat with a disapproving frown on his face. At the end of his talk, Tecumseh searched out those who had appeared unmoved during his speech and then he fixed his gaze on Big Warrior. Pointing his finger toward the Muscogee leader’s face, he told him: “Your blood is white: you have taken my talk, and the sticks and the wampum, and the hatchet, but you do not mean to fight: I know the reason: you do not believe the Great Spirit has sent me: you shall know: I leave Tuckhabatchee directly, and shall go straight to Detroit: when I arrive there, I will stamp the ground with my foot, and shake down every house in Tuckhabatchee.”
The first to reply to Tecumseh was William Weatherford, a mixed blood Muscogee, who was also known as Red Eagle, a man who would play a vital role over the next few years. He was far from convinced by what he had heard. If Tecumseh was so set on war with the whites, Weatherford demanded to know, why had he not already led the northern tribes into battle against them. Tecumseh replied that all of the native peoples needed to come together in the struggle at hand. Weatherford shot back that the Shawnee Chief’s suggested path would lead to war with the United States and that the native peoples could no more count on the British than on the Americans. Relying on the British for military assistance would be sheer folly.
There were others who rejected Tecumseh’s suggestion of a native alliance against the United States. During a conversation with Cherokee leaders later that evening, one chief warned Tecumseh that if he carried his message to Cherokee country, he would kill him.
Tecumseh did win adherents to his cause, however. His words stirred many of the warriors present. The Muscogees faced their own struggle to halt the seizure of their lands by the Americans and the words of Tecumseh would be remembered by them during the perilous events to come.
The Shawnee chief departed for the north. The prophecy he had hurled at Big Warrior was not forgotten. Some of the Muscogees counted the days, calculating how long it would take Tecumseh to reach Detroit. In the early hours of December 16, the day when the Muscogees had reckoned he would complete his journey, the earth trembled as the first waves of the most powerful series of earthquakes, of which there is a record, struck the eastern United States. Every house in Tuckhabatchee was shaken to the ground. “Tecumseh has got to Detroit!” was the message on the lips of many Muscogees on that day.
The earthquake was felt as far away as New York City and southern Canada. For a short time, the mighty shock, to be followed by further quakes over the next four months, caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards.
That the earthquakes struck is an indisputable fact. And it is no less a fact that many Muscogees connected the trembling of the earth with Tecumseh’s prophecy and drew the conclusion that the Shawnee chief’s call to arms must be heeded.
(This is an excerpt from the upcoming book by James Laxer titled Tecumseh and Brock: The War of 1812 to published in the spring of 2012 by House of Anansi in Toronto.)
Thousands of people watched the dramatic arrival of Tecumseh and his followers. Tuckhabatchee was overflowing with visitors and residents who were in town for the meeting of the Muscogee national council. Big Warrior, Hopoithle Miko and other important chiefs were in attendance. Long time North Carolina politician Benjamin Hawkins, the agent of the U.S. government appointed to the Muscogee nation, came to Tuckhabatchee to serve as the eyes and ears of Washington and to speak up for U.S. interests. A number of white traders were also on hand as well as representatives from the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee tribes, and even some from the Seminole nation, whose people hailed from south of the U.S. border in Spanish-ruled Florida.
The Muscogee people lived in settlements in what became Alabama and Mississippi, building their towns along the rivers and creeks of that lush territory. Because their settlements were located next to rivers and creeks, whites called the Muscogees the Creeks. Tuckhabatchee was strategically located at the junction of the Tallapoosa and Coosa Rivers.
There was great anticipation in the town about what Tecumseh, the famous Shawnee chief, would say when he addressed them. When he arrived in Tuckhabatchee, he was nearing the end of a journey that had taken him on a long arc from north to south across America organizing the native Confederacy whose purpose was to halt the acquisition of yet more native land by American settlers. He had reason to believe that his message would be well received, by many but not all, in Tuckhabatchee. Although, he came from the distant Ohio country with its markedly different terrain, Tecumseh had personal ties to the Muscogee that made this visit a homecoming as well as a diplomatic venture to win over peoples that were not his own.
Tecumseh stayed at the council for a number of days, but as long as U.S. Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins remained in town, he refrained from speaking. He had no intention of sharing his message to the Muscogee council with a representative of the United States government. Each day, Tecumseh remarked laconically that “the sun has gone too far today. I will make my talk tomorrow.” More than a week passed before Hawkins departed. The same evening, with a large multitude gathered, Tecumseh entered the council house and offered a wampum bag and a peace pipe to Big Warrior. Big Warrior smoked before he passed the peace pipe to the other chiefs. Tecumseh stood before the assemblage for a few minutes, looking over the crowd, before he began to speak. Accompanying Tecumseh that memorable evening as he had throughout his long tour was Sikaboo, his interpreter. Sikaboo was a proficient linguist, who spoke Muskogean, Choctaw, and English, in addition to Shawnee. When Tecumseh spoke to a crowd or negotiated with American or British political or military leaders, he did so in Shawnee. His knowledge of English was very limited, and he rarely attempted to speak to whites in their language.
There is no record of Tecumseh’s speech in Tuckhabatchee but he had been delivering essentially the same set of remarks on a number of occasions during his tour. We do have a record of his words spoken a few months later, and that gives us a good idea of what he had to say to the Muscogee national council.
Tecumseh was a masterful performer, who punctuated his remarks, with theatrical gestures. He used rhetoric to drive home the points he made and to leave an indelible impression on his listeners.
“Brothers----We all belong to the same family; we are all children of the Great Spirit; we walk in the same path; slake our thirst at the same spring; and now affairs of the greatest concern lead us to smoke the pipe around the same council fire.
“Brothers---We are friends; we must assist each other to bear our burdens. The blood of many of our fathers and brothers has run like water on the ground, to satisfy the avarice of the white men. We, ourselves, are threatened with a great evil; nothing will pacify them but the destruction of all the red men.
“Brothers---When the white men first set foot on our grounds, they were hungry; they had no place on which to spread their blankets, or to kindle their fires. They were feeble; they could do nothing for themselves. Our fathers commiserated their distress, and shared freely with them whatever the Great Spirit had given his red children. They gave them food when hungry, medicine when sick, spread skins for them to sleep on, and gave them grounds, that they might hunt and raise corn.
“Brothers---The white men are like poisonous serpents: when chilled, they are feeble and harmless; but invigorate them with warmth, and they sting their benefactors to death. The white people came to us feeble; and now we have made them strong, they wish to kill us, or drive us back, as they would wolves and panthers.
“Brothers---The white men are not friends to the Indians: at first they only asked for land sufficient for a wigwam; now, nothing will satisfy them but the whole of our hunting grounds, from the rising of the setting sun.
“Brothers---The white men want more than our hunting grounds; they wish to kill our warriors; they would even kill our old men, women, and little ones.”
“…..Brothers----We must be united; we must smoke the same pipe; we must fight each other’s battles; and more than all, we must love the Great Spirit; he is for us; he will destroy our enemies and make his red children happy.”
We do know that in his stirring address at Tuckhabatchee, Tecumseh drew on his close ties to the Muscogee people. “Oh, Muscogees!” he shouted. “Brethren of my mother! Brush from your eyelids the sleep of slavery, and strike for vengeance and your country!”
When the Shawnee Chief called on his audience to join him in the struggle and spoke of his ties with them, the effect was overwhelming. A thousand warriors raised their tomahawks in the air.
All through Tecumseh’s address, Big Warrior sat with a disapproving frown on his face. At the end of his talk, Tecumseh searched out those who had appeared unmoved during his speech and then he fixed his gaze on Big Warrior. Pointing his finger toward the Muscogee leader’s face, he told him: “Your blood is white: you have taken my talk, and the sticks and the wampum, and the hatchet, but you do not mean to fight: I know the reason: you do not believe the Great Spirit has sent me: you shall know: I leave Tuckhabatchee directly, and shall go straight to Detroit: when I arrive there, I will stamp the ground with my foot, and shake down every house in Tuckhabatchee.”
The first to reply to Tecumseh was William Weatherford, a mixed blood Muscogee, who was also known as Red Eagle, a man who would play a vital role over the next few years. He was far from convinced by what he had heard. If Tecumseh was so set on war with the whites, Weatherford demanded to know, why had he not already led the northern tribes into battle against them. Tecumseh replied that all of the native peoples needed to come together in the struggle at hand. Weatherford shot back that the Shawnee Chief’s suggested path would lead to war with the United States and that the native peoples could no more count on the British than on the Americans. Relying on the British for military assistance would be sheer folly.
There were others who rejected Tecumseh’s suggestion of a native alliance against the United States. During a conversation with Cherokee leaders later that evening, one chief warned Tecumseh that if he carried his message to Cherokee country, he would kill him.
Tecumseh did win adherents to his cause, however. His words stirred many of the warriors present. The Muscogees faced their own struggle to halt the seizure of their lands by the Americans and the words of Tecumseh would be remembered by them during the perilous events to come.
The Shawnee chief departed for the north. The prophecy he had hurled at Big Warrior was not forgotten. Some of the Muscogees counted the days, calculating how long it would take Tecumseh to reach Detroit. In the early hours of December 16, the day when the Muscogees had reckoned he would complete his journey, the earth trembled as the first waves of the most powerful series of earthquakes, of which there is a record, struck the eastern United States. Every house in Tuckhabatchee was shaken to the ground. “Tecumseh has got to Detroit!” was the message on the lips of many Muscogees on that day.
The earthquake was felt as far away as New York City and southern Canada. For a short time, the mighty shock, to be followed by further quakes over the next four months, caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards.
That the earthquakes struck is an indisputable fact. And it is no less a fact that many Muscogees connected the trembling of the earth with Tecumseh’s prophecy and drew the conclusion that the Shawnee chief’s call to arms must be heeded.
(This is an excerpt from the upcoming book by James Laxer titled Tecumseh and Brock: The War of 1812 to published in the spring of 2012 by House of Anansi in Toronto.)
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