Jim Hightower explains the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- in plain language

[LongTomH]

Radio commentator, author and progressive activist Jim Hightower has an excellent discussion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership on his Hightower Lowdown page: The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not about free trade. It's a corporate coup d'etat--against us!.

This time we really must pay attention, because TPP is not just another trade deal. First, it is massive and open-ended. It would hitch us immediately to 11 Pacific Rim nations (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam), and its door would remain wide open to lure China, Indonesia, Russia, and other nations to come in. Second, note that many of those countries already have trade agreements with the US. Hence, THIS AMAZING FACT: TPP is a "trade deal" that mostly does not deal with trade. In fact, of the 29 chapters in this document, only five cover traditional trade matters!

Jim discusses all the negative ways that TPP will affect us:

• Food Safety,
  
• Fracking,
  
• Jobs,
  
• Drug Prices,
  
• Banksters,
  
• Internet Freedom,
  
• Public Services

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's superb research and activist group, Global Trade Watch, correctly calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership "a corporate coup d'etat." Indeed, nations that join must conform their laws and rules to TPP's strictures, effectively supplanting US sovereignty and cancelling our people's right to be self-governing. Worse, it creates virtually permanent corporate rule over us--there's no expiration date on the agreement, and no provision in it can be altered unless all countries agree. Thus, even if Americans voted in an election to make changes, any other TPP country could overrule us by not agreeing.

Awful as the TPP is, Jim Hightower doesn't think its passage is inevitable; he lists a number of fights against unjust "free trade" agreements in the past, and concludes:

My message: We can do this. We The People can protect our democratic rights from this latest threat of corporate usurpation. The only way the Powers That Be can win is to keep the public in the dark about what TPP is. So now is the time for Lowdowners to sound the alarm, spread the news about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (start by sharing this article with your social networks!), and shine the light of day on their power play before it gets to Congress.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Big K&R

Thanks.

[cantbeserious]

2. The Oligarchs, Corporations And Banks Own And Control The Politicians That Own And Control Us

eom

[2naSalit]

11. And we have to stop feeding the beast

or it will devour us completely.

[blue14u]

3. K&R

Thank you for sharing this...

I shared it on FB already!

[indie9197]

4. Nothing good could come from this...

unless you are in the 1%.

It is disturbing that Obama is pushing this.


http://m.democracynow.org/stories/13922

[2naSalit]

12. Very disturbing. nt

[QuestForSense]

17. Has bothered me for months.

[reformist2]

5. This may sound ignorant, but I don't want to read any more details...no more free trade deals!

I don't need to know every nit-picky detail about their latest plans to globalize and profit-maximize... I already know it stinks!

[freshwest]

6. Comment at the end described a greater problem we have yet to deal with:

Unregulated corporations are psychopaths.

Unregulated corporations are psychopaths. Why?

Psychopaths are characterized by enduring anti-social behavior, a diminished capacity for empathy or remorse, and poor behavioral controls.

A corporation is bottom line driven. This make a corporation essentially amoral, without any capacity for empathy or remorse.

Behavioral controls are either imposed by government regulation or are imposed by the corporations desire not to put off customers. But this last control is rendered moot by the corporate mendacity.

My conclusion is that unregulated corporations are psychopaths.

This is the best reason for laws REGULATING corporations I have seen.

-- posted by David B Teague at 1:45pm, November 15, 2013

I have always felt this way. It's basic logic. The basis is profit for a select group, CEOs, employees or shareholders, not human needs, or even the needs of the Earth to be protected for all species.

We have been gifted to be born and live on this planet and this is not the way of life. Adding this video which is a bit flowery, just to help comprehend what we are faced with now, and in a way, have always been under diffrerent names, like empires.

It says corporations (associations many will always defend as a part of their own livelihood) have more wealth and power than any of the world's governments. This is what our leaders are confronted with, so I don't go with personal bashing.

We worked for and made this. We have to undo it, and there will be, as the video says, 'hell to pay.'

From a climate change thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110219113

[2naSalit]

10. +1!

[larkrake]

13. Wonderful

[merrily]

16. Corporations have money, but "our leaders" don't have to accept it or

do their bidding.

There are only 2 ways you or I can hope to control corporations: government regulation or acquiring stock that gives you a controlling interest.

I don't have enough money to buy a controlling interest. I can only rely on my so-called representatives to do the correct thing. Too bad they don't very often.

Criticizing politicians for trying to ram TPP through is not personal bashing. Calling them ugly or rude or dishonest is personal bashing.

[truedelphi]

35. If dishonest people are doing dishonest things, how is calling them dishonest

"Personal Bashing" ??

[sabrina 1]

21. I couldn't agree more with that comment.

You have to have serious psychopathic issues to have zero ability to empathize with other human beings and to want to hoard all the material benefits you can for yourself, at the expense of millions of others.

[raouldukelives]

36. Ain't that the truth. For every person I run into who genuinely cares about leaving a better world.

Someone who lives a life that can make the world better and desires that as a legacy instead of one assuredly leaving it worse. I run into a hundred that invest in Wall St and are too blinded by our media to realize why nothing gets better. When all they really need to do is sneak a peek in a mirror.

[silvershadow]

7. K&R.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

8. du rec

[2naSalit]

9. Thanks for posting K&R!

[jsr]

14. Great piece.

[burrowowl]

15. K&R! Go Jim!

[Oldtimeralso]

18. K&R

It is time for Americans to wake up, amend to eliminate corporate citizenship, open campaign financial reporting, and reform the lobbyist (special interest groups) invasion.
Sheeple follow the propaganda spread by the "news" industry when it is all big business only working for their own good, NOT the good of the people.

[Enthusiast]

19. Who would want to live in a world under corporate rule?

These sellouts don't understand what a horrible world they will be creating long term.

[chervilant]

20. Sounding the alarm, and

shining the light of day on this mega-scam is a meager start. We MUST stop the TPP, and we MUST take back our politics, our media, AND our global economy from these vile corporate megalomaniacs.

This thing is a supersized and nuclearized NAFTA, the 1994 trade scam rammed through Congress by Bill Clinton, Wall Street's Robert Rubin, and the entire corporate establishment. They promised that the "glories of globalization" would shower prosperity across our land. They lied. Corporations got the gold. We got the shaft--thousands of factories closed, millions of middle-class jobs went south, and the economies of hundreds of towns and cities (including Detroit) were hollowed out. (Most Mexicans got the NAFTA shafta, too. US grain traders like ADM dumped corn into Mexico, wiping out millions of peasant farmers' livelihoods, and thousands of local businesses were crushed when Walmart invaded with its Chinese-made wares.)

Twenty years later, the corporate gang that stuck us with NAFTA is back, hoping to fool us with an even more destructive multinational deal. (This calls for another immortal quote from George W: "Fool me once, shame on--shame on you. Fool me--you can't get fooled again." Well, you know what he meant).

(emphasis mine)

[Bettie]

22. Way back in the '80's

I was DMing a Sci Fi game (don't judge me, I'm a dork)

The world I created was the "Corporate Protectorate" which took over all government operations once the board decided that said governments were bad for business.

Who knew it was coming ever closer?

[blackspade]

38. Cyberpunk? Shadowrun?

Loved them both back in the day!

[Bettie]

47. SpaceMaster (RoleMaster space version)

It was fun, even if character generation took forever.

Now, I play Pathfinder every other Saturday, because I'm still a giant nerd.

[blackspade]

48. I totally forgot about Spacemaster!

I moved on from roleplaying to tabletop miniature gaming.
Much less time intensive when you have kids!

Pathfinder is a great game though.

[blkmusclmachine]

23. Obama is still pushing hard for TPP, yes? 11-Dimensions of "bi-partisan" BS!!

[bullwinkle428]

24. NPR catapaulting the propaganda on this big-time this A.M., warning

that if we don't sign on, Asian countries will stop importing beef and other food products from the U.S.

K&R.

[ctsnowman]

25. K & R

[ctsnowman]

26. What's not to like?

We could end up having environmental protections as strong as Malaysia!

[FairWinds]

27. Lori Wallach . .

has been doing this research for a long time, at least since NAFTA.
Her analysis has always been spot on.

[me b zola]

28. K&R

[SaveOurDemocracy]

29. Where are the defenders? Oh, I see, trashing Snowden in another thread.

So they ARE here. They just get eerily quiet on TPP.

[ancianita]

30. ANYWAY, who are the direct players. When and where will they meet next. What can citizens do

beside use the usual impotent voice objections through petitions and phone calls.

Isn't a stronger, collective, visual action needed? Like an income tax strike? Port strikes? Trucker strikes? Something to force mainstream media's attention?

[LongTomH]

32. If we could get the unions involved, those are all possibilities.

Meanwhile, stay informed, and do call your Congresscritter's office frequently, and do go to open houses by Congresspersons.

[ancianita]

33. My 'meanwhile' on this has been two years. I hate to be determinist, but there's been no response

in Illinois to my knowledge. Awareness is growing slowly, no thanks to lapdog mainstream media. BUT.

We HAVE to be past the awareness stage and act on this. We HAVE to stop bitching at each other about each other and see what we can DO together.

What's to stop the players from passing this. That's Congress. They can't be hurt by anything their publics do. I'm not hearing a single action plan -- except the Democrats's letter of protest against 'fast tracking' this bill to adopt this 'trade' treaty. They've made the appearance of caring about their governance, but they'll eventually sell out. Right before the 2014 elections. There's just too much money in it for them, and too much spite voting to be done by the losers. There will be the same government but there is no way we citizens will influence policy any longer, not even at state levels.

[840high]

31. Huge k/r

[WillyT]

34. HUGE K & R !!!

[fadedrose]

37. K

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

39. Thank you!

[Th1onein]

40. knr

[valerief]

41. TPP will take away our guns! We need that meme. nt

[INdemo]

42. And I am really pissed off that I voted for Obama and he slapped us in the face and

flipped us the bird. He said thanks for all that but I go where the money is and I support the TPP.
Well Mr. President it wont be as easy as NAFTA..Its time for every union worker in the world to rise to help stop this madness. I would have expected this from Romney but Obama ...you cannot do this to those who worked so hard to get your ass elected.

[marmar]

43. Wow. Third Way spin control hasn't descended on this thread yet.

Maybe they've run out of lipstick.

[Flatpicker]

44. There are a bunch of things that I don't understand, as an example.

1. Why would any Democratic politician want to make a deal like this?

It's not as if their offspring won't see the effects of offshored jobs, lowered food and environmental standards, and the loss of consumer protection.

I'm not thinking directly of the Obama children, but what about the grandkids? If you look at the generations after a presidency, you see a history of the kids being unable or unwilling to continue that legacy. So, if you make some extra money now, will that really affect the standing of your family in the future?

Not to be terribly harsh, but Obama's grandchildren will still be African-American, I don't see how money will get them past the guards of the 1%'ers once the shine of your presidency is gone.

2. Where are our heroes in the Congress?

I read that Warren and Grayson have seen the plan and or have talked to the people involved. Ok, now what? You don't like the answers, but I don't see you making it part of the daily rhetoric? Why aren't you screaming to any media outlet who will hear you? Why aren't you more vocal? You are definitely vocal when it is time to ask for money. I hear you loud enough at that time. Alan, if you claim that this is so bad, why not get an unapproved copy of the TPP for release? What is holding you back? What covenant is more important than the one you made to serve the interests of the USA?

Everyone wants us to support them. Ok, you are in, Why aren't you making a stink?
Seems to me that some type of Freedom of Information suit made from a Standing Senator would draw attention even if it was denied? Then you can take the denial to the air and make your shouts even louder? Get the MSM to ask What is there to hide by denying the request?

While you are at it, how about re-introducing the fairness doctrine? Force the News to actually report facts. Remove the ability to air opinion as news. Kill the propaganda machines across the board.

[LongTomH]

46. Elizabeth Warren has been making waves about this.

Warren on Trans-Pacific Partnership: If people knew what was going on, they would stop it

Elizabeth Warren Free Trade Letter Calls for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Elizabeth Warren Speaks Out Against the President's Transpacific "Free Trade" Agreement

Corporate America Wants the Trans-Pacific Partnership for Christmas this year. Contains these paragraphs:

In June, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) sent Obama’s nominee to replace Kirk, Michael Froman, a letter requesting the TPP text, stating “I believe in transparency and democracy, and I think the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) should too.” The USTR’s argument against releasing the text was, Warren wrote, “exactly backward.”

“If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.”

On June 19, 2013, Sen. Warren announced that she would not vote for Froman to take the trade office position due to his refusal to release the TPP text, even in an edited or redacted form.

[KG]

45. oh. c'mon. this all about exporting soybeans, read it right here on DU. what's with the soybean hate

[Berlum]

49. "You smelly proles need to STFU and assume the position." - 1% (R)