'Stop TTIP': Global Day of Action Draws Tens of Thousands
'Rising anti-American sentiment linked to revelations of U.S. spying and fears of digital domination by firms like Google'
4/18/15



Demonstrators marched around the globe Saturday to protest the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a 'free trade' agreement currently being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and the United States.

Opponents fear that TTIP will erode food, labor and environmental standards particularly with regard to the EU's strict regulations on food additives, genetically modified crops and the use of pesticides. "There is a very big risk: TTIP will restrict our democratic rights. In the future, large corporations will have an even greater influence on the legislative process," said Thilo Bode of Foodwatch.

The EU and US began TTIP talks nearly two years over creating the world’s biggest trade zone. The ninth round of negotiations will begin on Monday, April 20 in New York.

Tens of thousands marched across Germany where more than 200 demonstrations took place.

In Barcelona, 50,000 marched through city streets....

...Reuters reports:

Opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is particularly high in Germany, in part due to rising anti-American sentiment linked to revelations of U.S. spying and fears of digital domination by firms like Google.

A recent YouGov poll showed that 43 percent of Germans believe TTIP would be bad for the country, compared to 26 percent who see it as positive.

More than 7,000 gathered in front of the Austrian parliament chanting slogans such as “Stop TTIP”, “humanity and the environment before profit”, and “TTIP is a threat to democracy, and people’s health.”

In all, some 600 anti-TTIP protests were planned across the world for Saturday.

A Call to Action on www.globaltradeday.org, which is co-ordinating promotion of the protests, reads:

"We, civil society organizations, trade unions, farmers, youth, women, indigenous movements and grassroots activists from across the world, are calling for a Global Day of Action on 18 April 2015 to stop free trade and investment deals and promote an economy that works for people and the planet.

For the last decades, secret trade and investment agreements have been pushed by corporations and governments, damaging our rights and the environment.

For the last decades, we have been fighting for food sovereignty, for the commons, to defend our jobs, our lands, internet freedom and to reclaim democracy. Along the way, we have grown as a movement, we have made our voices heard and we had victories.

Together, we can stop the agreements that are being negotiated and reverse the negative impacts of past agreements. We can drive forward our alternatives based on human rights over corporate privileges.

We call on organizations, individuals and alliances to participate by organizing decentralized actions across the five continents. We welcome a diversity of tactics and solidarity actions from across the world that will help raise awareness, engage and mobilize people locally towards a new trade and economic model that works for people and the planet"....

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/18/stop-ttip-global-day-action-draws-tens-thousands

The TPP isn’t some sort of futuristic flying machine. It’s just another global trade scam coming at us like a volcanic eruption straight out of hell.

This thing is a “partnership” of, by, and for global corporations — similar to NAFTA, only much, much bigger and far more destructive both to the middle class and to our people’s sovereignty....

....For example, such odd-bedfellow boosters as Secretary of State John Kerry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce both exclaim that the 12-nation scheme will “support 650,000 new jobs.”

Wow… really?

No.

Glenn Kessler, who writes The Washington Post‘s “Fact-Checker” column, dug into that number in January. He found that it was incorrect, misleading, and silly.

In fact, he wrote, “The correct number is zero.”

http://ourfuture.org/20150416/odd-bedfellows-lying-together

The people are not even in the game; the contest is over before the Democratic Party’s formal selection process even begins. And, when primary season does arrive, it will only be a formality. The menu has already been printed, and Hillary will be the main course for Democrats next year.

Democratic voters can say “Yes” to Hillary, but they can’t say “No,” because the party machinery and the rich men who pay for that machinery will crucify and expel any Democrat who seriously challenges her from the Left.

The Democratic Party became a liberal party largely through the "New Deal" policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Before FDR, "laissez-faire" or "free-market" policies were the only policies acceptable to America's ruling elites. FDR's New Deal policies used government spending power to create jobs for the masses of unemployed, and used payroll taxes to provide retirement security through Social Security. FDR also created regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to avoid another financial crisis.

FDR's liberal policies were supported by Democratic and Republican administrations until Ronald Reagan began a conservative counterattack against FDR's policies in 1981.

After 8 years of Reaganism, conservative Democrats began embracing the Reaganite assault on liberalism, and called themselves "New Democrats" to distinguish themselves from traditional FDR-inspired liberals.

These "New Democrats" drew support from large corporations that wanted a return to "laissez-faire" policies to get out from under regulations.

http://www.democrats.com/new-democrats

What Elizabeth Warren Has That Hillary Clinton Needs
4/17/2015



"Rules are not the enemy of markets,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told me yesterday, on the heels of her major address on the unfinished business of financial reform at the Levy Institute’s Hyman Minsky Conference. “Rules promote innovation and competition. Rules prevent markets from blowing up.

We learned that in 1929 and we should have learned it again in 2008.”

That comment captures what distinguishes Warren from so many of her congressional and political colleagues. Any lawmaker can create a laundry list, and in her Minsky speech Warren did some of that, presenting specific steps needed to bolster financial regulation, which in its current state still puts the country at risk.

But Warren has garnered attention because she actually has a worldview for how to best structure the economy, one which has become impossible for any Democrat, even the former Secretary of State winding through our nation’s Chipotles, to ignore.

Warren’s governing philosophy can be boiled down to one simple sentiment: Actions must have consequences. The way to build functioning markets is to lay out ground rules and actually hold market participants accountable to them. That allows everyone in a market the same set of chances to succeed if they can attract enough customers. “This is about building competitive capitalism instead of crony capitalism,” Warren told me.

... In other words, Warren’s agenda isn’t the result of some narrowly focused monomania about financial institutions. It’s about making the economy work, in a way that it hasn’t for the past 40 years. And it’s rooted in this principle that rules are necessary for healthy markets.

...The simplicity of this framework, along with its universal grounding in firmly held values, has made it difficult to characterize as wild-eyed liberal screeds, no matter how hard industry mouthpieces try...

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2015/04/17/What-Elizabeth-Warren-Has-Hillary-Clinton-Needs

The Democratic Party became a liberal party largely through the "New Deal" policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Before FDR, "laissez-faire" or "free-market" policies were the only policies acceptable to America's ruling elites. FDR's New Deal policies used government spending power to create jobs for the masses of unemployed, and used payroll taxes to provide retirement security through Social Security. FDR also created regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to avoid another financial crisis.

FDR's liberal policies were supported by Democratic and Republican administrations until Ronald Reagan began a conservative counterattack against FDR's policies in 1981.

After 8 years of Reaganism, conservative Democrats began embracing the Reaganite assault on liberalism, and called themselves "New Democrats" to distinguish themselves from traditional FDR-inspired liberals.

These "New Democrats" drew support from large corporations that wanted a return to "laissez-faire" policies to get out from under regulations.

http://www.democrats.com/new-democrats

Lying, cheating, stealing, winning: The shocking motivations of American voters revealed in new study

It turns out that partisan Americans treat politics like they treat sports: Winning is the only thing that matters
SALON
4/16/15

A new study out of the University of Kansas demonstrates that the individuals most likely to vote in elections aren’t worried about policy so much as they are invested in their “team” winning.

In “Red and Blue States of Mind: Partisan Hostility and Voting in the United States,” University of Kansas assistant professor of political science Patrick Miller and Pamela Johnston Conover, a distinguished professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, argue that in the current polarized political climate, voters behave more like obsessed sports fans than informed citizens.

“For too many of them,” Miller told the University of Kansas News Service, “it’s not high-minded, good-government, issue-based goals. It’s, ‘I hate the other party. I’m going to go out, and we’re going to beat them.’ That’s troubling.”

Analyzing data from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, Miller and Conover found that, contrary to earlier research, party loyalty was the driving factor in voter behavior — much more so than fundamental disagreements over ideological issues.

Forty-one percent of voters who identified with either the Democratic or Republican party stated that they were more heavily invested in winning elections than achieving policy goals, whereas only 35 percent of respondents felt that ideology trumped party victory. Moreover, 38 percent of self-described Democrats and Republicans believed that politics is a zero-sum game in which electoral victory must be achieved at all cost, using any tactic necessary....

...“If our politicians are polarized and uncivil,” Miller explained, “maybe it’s because many voters are polarized and uncivil.”

“We’re not thinking about politics in the way that most Founders wanted, which is to think about issues, be open to compromise and not be attached to parties,” he continued. “We’re looking at politics through a simplistic partisan view in which we think our side is good and their side is bad.”...

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/16/lying_cheating_stealing_winning_the_shocking_motivations_of_american_voters_revealed_in_new_study/

Elizabeth Warren has a game-changing idea that doesn’t require Congress
4/15/15



Elizabeth Warren isn't running for president. But she does have an agenda for reining in the big banks that would go well beyond the Obama administration's (underrated) bank regulation moves and substantially alter the role of Wall Street in American life.

In a speech delivered on April 15 at the Levy Institute's 24th annual Hyman Minsky conference, Warren laid out the most comprehensive and ambitious version of her agenda yet.

Naturally, the bulk of her policies would require new acts of Congress. ... But a crucial element of Warren's agenda could be unilaterally implemented by the next president — or even this one.

An agenda a president can deliver — bring back prosecutions

... She wants to see the federal government level criminal charges against financial institutions that break the rules.

"The Department of Justice doesn’t take big financial institutions to trial — ever," she says in her speech. "Even when financial institutions engage in blatantly criminal activity."

...In typical Warren fashion, she lays out this idea like folksy common sense. But to understand what a powerful weapon this could be, you have to understand why officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations haven't used it against big banks.

Reporting on the Justice Department's thinking from Jim Zarroli at NPR, Jesse Eisinger at ProPublica, Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times, and others comes back to a single name: Arthur Andersen.

Arthur Andersen was one of the "big five" major accounting companies in America, until it was found to have been deeply complicit in Enron's financial shenanigans. The federal government took the company to court and won a conviction. But companies don't do jail time and then come out on parole. What happened instead is that the company swiftly and spectacularly collapsed — clients and suppliers don't want to work with a company that they think may go out of business soon, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy....

...To Warren, this corporate sob story doesn't hold much water....

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/15/8420789/elizabeth-warren-prosecutions

Ready for Hillary? How About a Mass Populist Party Instead?
4/14/2015

Following Hillary Clinton’s long-heralded announcement Sunday that she’ll be “Getting Started” on a 2016 run, American progressives are facing a tough choice about who, if anyone, to support in the next presidential fracas. Thankfully, there are more choices available to today’s movements than might seem obvious. With relatively little federal electoral promise in our own backyards, those interested in contesting for power and an unapologetically left-leaning agenda can start looking abroad.

Certainly, a mass populist party along the lines of Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain — each of which has already or is poised to take over their country’s top office — is not on track to appear here, in the United States, before 2016. That said, Americans grasping for a third way can learn important lessons from the recent successes of Syriza and Podemos — lessons that point to more than a totally marginal Green Party candidate or centrist Democrats that say but rarely do the right things. No, Syriza and Podemos show that it’s possible to mount a real, fighting challenge to the political establishment....

...As liberal-left media jumps at the chance to lampoon Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, movements interested in engaging with a broader base might take inspiration from European populists’ commitment to meeting the needs of working people, and their ability to rally masses around it in the streets and at the polls.

Plenty of great articles have been written over the last several weeks — and many more over the past couple days — on the flaws of positing Clinton as a hopeful or even liberal candidate for Commander in Chief. In short, there’s plenty left to be desired: Her ties to Walmart and Wall Street, her not-so-secretly neoconservative foreign policy agenda, and concerted efforts to scale back welfare for the “working families” her campaign is now targeting. The debate over Clinton’s liberal credentials is already being had. A topic that has graced relatively few headlines, however, is how progressive movements can respond with a real alternative....

...As Jeb Bush seeks out the Republican nomination, voters in 2016 might face the unprecedented dilemma of deciding between the heir apparents to two of America’s most powerful political dynasties, each directly related — by blood or marriage — to at least one former president. Even if the storied Bush vs. Clinton showdown doesn’t come to pass, the fact that it’s possible illustrates the simple, eerie reality that our country’s electoral process was not designed to represent the interests of its population.

So what is to be done short of half-hearted calls for “the revolution”?

As Syriza’s ongoing battle with the Troika has proven, according to Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, “It is essential that we understand that winning an election does not mean winning power.” There will be no revolution in November or in any ballot contest — only an opportunity to use the race to further a vision of real hope, from grassroots movements fighting for justice on a number of fronts. Therefore, movement practitioners who choose to throw their hands up at, or, alternately, get them entirely too dirty “Readying for Hillary” will be choosing options that cede too much ground to an elite political class who would like nothing better....

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/14/ready-hillary-how-about-mass-populist-party-instead

And I'm sickened that the admins of this site are promoting her before there's even been a primary.

Hillary channels Elizabeth Warren in campaign bid

If you close your eyes, you might think Elizabeth Warren is talking.

In her video campaign announcement Sunday, Hillary Clinton unveiled what's expected to be the central theme of her presidential bid: Serving as a champion for "Everyday Americans."

"Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top," she said in the short video. "Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion. So you can do more than just get by. You can get ahead and stay ahead."

Long considered a centrist, Clinton sounded strikingly similar to Warren, the outspoken darling of the left wing, which has been pushing the Massachusetts senator to run for the 2016 nomination. (So far, she has declined.) Warren's main talking point: Give every American a fighting chance.

"America's middle class is under attack. It's in trouble because the game is deliberately rigged," Warren wrote in her memoir, A Fighting Chance. "I am determined -- fiercely determined -- to do everything I can to help us once again be the America that creates opportunities for anyone who works hard and plays by the rules."

Related: Elizabeth Warren: 8 ways to restore the middle class

Warren's proposals to boost middle class prosperity include: Raising the minimum wage, supporting bargaining rights for workers, ensuring workers get overtime pay and creating good paying jobs through investments in roads, bridges, power grids, education and research, among other things.

In an election where every candidate is focused on the middle class, Clinton may have to shift left to appeal to the Democratic base. She and her advisers have been speaking to income inequality and economic mobility gurus, including Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Raj Chetty of Harvard, according to media reports.

Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist, has argued that income inequality has exploded over the past 30 years. The widening gap endangers economic growth and makes it harder for people to achieve the American Dream...

http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/13/news/economy/hillary-clinton-elizabeth-warren/