Greetings!
Here’s a rule that’s served me well over the years… whenever someone tries to rush me into signing something, I don’t sign. Even if it seems like a great deal I do not, on principle, sign anything in a hurry. Being told to sign quickly without any real details is even worse; it leaps beyond common sense into the realm of insult. No one rushes you to sign anything because they’re in a hurry to make your life better; they do it because they know if you have time to consider carefully you wouldn’t sign at all. It’s a very old sales trick, and apparently it’s fine for the folks pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). If I knew nothing else about the deal (and I don’t; no one does because it’s still secret) this one fact alone would be enough to know it’s a dangerously bad deal for everyone involved…
Most people still don’t know about the TPP because our mainstream media has been almost completely silent on it, but very briefly… The TPP would join 12 Pacific-rim nations in a trade agreement that would govern 40% of the global gross domestic product. The deal has been negotiated in secret over a period of years, and it’s still secret… the only things we know about it so far have come from WikiLeaks.
Of course, we do know who’s lining up to sell the TPP. On the Right, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are on board as is the rest of the Republican leadership, along with ALEC, the Chamber of Commerce, and hundreds of corporate behemoths including Monsanto, Exxon, ADM, Boeing, Phillip Morris, Citigroup, Conoco, Kraft, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Pfizer, and Nike. On the Left, President Obama seems almost proud to lead the Corporatist wing of the Democratic party down the TPP path and Hillary seems content to quietly follow. Even within our own Oregon Congressional delegation, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Earl Blumenauer were instrumental in moving the Fast Track authority out of committee and on to the Senate.
You know who’s NOT supporting TPP? The groups in “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs”, an Orwellian sock-puppet website. There are no groups listed on the site, and their “Get the Facts” link was still dead at last check. People that actually exist and oppose TPP include just about every labor, environmental, or civil liberties group on the planet. Two individuals of note fighting TPP include Senator Elizabeth Warren and newly announced Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders.
The TPP is being pushed by the corporate lobbyists and shills that wrote it, but that doesn’t prove it’s bad. What little we know of the content so far does. Only 5 of the agreements 29 provisions have anything to do with what is traditionally known as “trade” at all, but TPP would mean drastic changes in labor laws, human rights, environmental standards, financial regulation, internet freedom, food safety, and more. There’s far too much to go into in this column, but Elizabeth Warren described one of the most egregious points we know about so far in a recent Washington Post Op-Ed…
“The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Here’s how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.”
Free trade is one thing, but NAFTA and CAFTA style agreements aren’t free trade. They’re dangerous power grabs by corporations that will affect, eventually, every phase of our lives. Looking for reasons behind the immolation of Baltimore? Look no further than the destruction of the middle class. And if you’re looking for the reasons behind that, look no further than these cynical and poisonous trade deals. Please, educate yourself and your friends about the TPP, let your Congressional Representatives know how you feel, and take a stand for the type of world YOU want to create.
Take Care and Make a Great Day!
