If this is a democracy, why is stuff discussed in private?

[Left Coast2020]

President Nixon first developed the idea of "Fast Track" in 1973 as a way to secure Congressional approval of trade agreements, and it has been a key to passing many unpopular agreements such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and NAFTA. As people have caught on to the offshoring of jobs and other detrimental consequences of these agreements, civil society now understands how important it is to not allow a president to circumvent the democratic role of Congress. Fast Track expired in 2007, so President Obama must have it re-instated in order to pass the TPP. His administration is moving to have Fast Track approved and hopes it will happen by this summer.


http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15353-transpacific-partnership-will-undermine-democracy-empower-transnational-corporations

I really have a problem with this. Key word: "hopes" he can have it by summer.

[msongs]

1. tansparency is a word you use to get elected - secret is way to behave after you're elected nt

[CK_John]

2. Maybe its being a republic.

[lunasun]

3. Stop TPP-NAFTA on steroids

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022558110

[woo me with science]

4. Shock Doctrine means more and more is done in secrecy.

Backroom meetings to solve a manufactured "crisis" are modus operandi now. Meanwhile, the corporate shills lecture us that we shouldn't jump the gun by criticizing legislation we haven't seen. Of course, then after it is passed, it is too late.

You are absolutely right that we are deliberately excluded from our own, supposedly "representative" government now as a matter of course. We are also subjected to endless shameful propaganda to get us to accept the exclusion as normal. The most insulting and outrageous recent example was probably the Obama administration's brazen refusal during the campaign to disclose with clarity his position on Social Security. The spectacle of Plouffe telling a reporter that he would not talk about that...that it was a matter for Senators behind closed doors....was a slap in the face of all voters and a deadly serious wake-up call that our elected "representatives" need a serious reminder that they work for us and not the other way around.

And the complicity of the corporate media...the proof that it has completely abdicated its responsibility as a check on abuse of government and governmental corruption....is the fact that we can get through an entire major election without any candidate's being held accountable on the major issues of the day, including policies on safety nets, the wars, and the outrageously metastasizing police state.