Is the TPP the most important issue at this time? To me it is

[cali]

Here's why:

If enacted, from what we know, it could negatively impact everything from the environment to intellectual property rights.

We don't know enough about an agreement that has such wide ranging effect. The process has been secretive to the max. Those who are privy to the specifics and advising the USTR are corporate reps. Congress doesn't know the specifics except that which has been leaked and the admin doesn't want the Senate to be able to debate or change the TPP, simply vote it up or down. Not very democratic is that?

The TPP isan audacious power grab on the part of corporations that there is no coming back from,

It not about trade at all. It's not about lowering tariffs- that faux holy grail of trade- It's about untethering corporations from any government regulation.


And there's one more reason I think this is the most important issue:

We can MAYBE stop it.

We can maybe stop the TPA and if we stop that, we can bring the whole ghastly agreement crashing down.

So yeah, I think it's the most important issue.

What do you think?

9 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes, the TPP (and TTIP) is the most important issue at this time
	5 (56%)
	eh, if the President wants it, it's good for us.
	0 (0%)
	It's important but there are other issues more important
	4 (44%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Systematic Chaos]

1. The methane bomb up in the Arctic will have us not even remembering this shit in 50 years.

So, it will all suck balls while it's relevant, but Mother Nature bats last.

[cali]

2. you do grasp that the TPP could well have a major negative environmental impact, right?

[Systematic Chaos]

4. The TPP won't do anything we're not already doing just fine without it.

I refer you to the Environment/Energy forum, where the evidence is overwhelming that humanity is on a path to maybe 20 million of us barely eking out an existence, crowded around the poles which will be the only habitable zones left. Whether it takes another 75 years or a thousand, it's already pretty much "in the books" thanks to feedbacks.

[cali]

5. lol. I don't need to go to the Environmental forum to know something I do over 20 years ago.

duh.

but that doesn't mean I think we should just sit back while corporations hasten us to that fate.

[Systematic Chaos]

6. Corporations hastening us? Really? Almost everything they DO hastens us by default.

Corporations are already training us to enjoy eating rat poison disguised as food, without the TPP.

Corporations are already reducing the American standard of living in myriad ways, without the TPP.

Corporations are already using our police forces as private security to quash protest, without the TPP.

And any ranting and raving on this board, or any other form of "protest" short of a nationwide General Strike may as well be just sitting back. A General Strike, or maybe "die-ins," where thousands of seriously ill people without adequate health care join their families on the steps of state Capitol buildings. Things that radical may make a dent, but nothing short of that is going to matter.

Say what you want. Think what you want. I'm not stopping you. But my mind has also been made up for close to 20 years.

[joshcryer]

8. TPP is merely the realization of inaction on climate change.

It is hardly some sort of harbinger, it is simply the ultimate end result of US policies.

[bananas]

20. Cali, that's one of the problems with the Environment/Energy forum

It's full of doomers convincing themselves that nothing can be done.
They have all kinds of pseudo-scientific rationalizations.
A lot of the talking points could be straight from the Koch brothers.

It's widely recognized that the biggest hindrance to action on global warming is a lack of political will,
yet that forum is full of people doing everything they can to sabotage political will.

And you see it right here in this thread.

[joshcryer]

7. Ding, ding, we have a winner.

The most pressing issue human civilization has yet to face is climate change. This shit will be seen in 10 years. It will blow minds.

[solarhydrocan]

3. The MIC Spigot is pretty important...but it's now buy-partisan

The Military Industrial Complex- MIC Spigot

Count to 10 right now: That is >$20,000 dumped in the laps of contractors and "defense" companies.

More than $2000 per SECOND every second of every day. It's a grand looting and now that a Democrat leads the Government it's not so important to many that would have complained had the looting been done by an R.

Happy Anniversary to Eisenhowers MIC Speech January 16, 1961

Click here to watch the dollars flow

http://nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

[newfie11]

9. We've got to stop TPP

What it will do to the environment may well kill us all.
Maybe the rich have convinced themselves that this is all hooey but it will be to late once they figure it out.
Environment aside TPP means working for slave labor wages and God knows what else. There's a reason this is being kept a secret!
Wake up America!

[ReRe]

13. Hear! Hear!

"What it will do to the environment may well kill us all" sooner.

[livingwagenow]

10. TPP made a swing voter out of me that will likely boycott November. I voted yes.

Free Trade is killing America like a bad case of lung cancer.

[xchrom]

11. yes. nt

[pampango]

12. We certainly need an international agreement that that protects the evironment and labor rights.

If the TPP (or any future international agreement whether its couched as a 'climate treaty', a UN labor treaty or whatever) would do that I think liberals would support it. (Obviously, conservatives are going to have major problems with environmental protection, labor rights and the idea of sacrificing national sovereignty to accomplish these goals.) If, as appears likely, the final agreement does not accomplish those goals then it should be rejected and a new agreement negotiated - not that I am optimistic that one will be any time soon.

[livingwagenow]

15. Bill Clinton tried that with NAFTA. The E&L "protections" were deemed unenforceable.

Clinton vetoed the original NAFTA ratification bill and demanded that 2 key provisions be amended to the bill.

1. Environmental protections

2. Labor protection and a grievance/arbitration panel to hear said grievances.

Congress amended the bill and added said provisions.

Clinton signed NAFTA into law, ratifying it as a trade pact.

Since, no judge will enforce either provision. Both have been deemed unenforceable.

[pampango]

16. My point was not that past efforts on the environment and labor rights have been successful,

but that future ones will likely be supported by liberals and opposed by conservatives. I certainly do not think that it is impossible to ever negotiate, ratify and enforce international agreements that accomplish these goals, but none of us can look at history and think that it will be easy especially with the conservative opposition sure to fight back.

[ReRe]

14. I believe it is!

But, since we have the "librul" info-tainment news that we have today, most of The People don't even know what it is. Rome is falling around us, but I'm going to go down kicking and screaming to the very end.

[MisterP]

17. presumably the idea is to present everyone with 5 options, all disastrous

and say "pick 4"

[B Calm]

18. I think it's the most important and will have reversible results if it's not stopped.

[pa28]

19. It's another historic mistake on par with NAFTA and the Iraq war.

We simply can't afford another crushing error as a nation. Now the very same set of political elites are walking us straight into it.

You bet it's a major issue and the more certain posters on DU whine about the attention it's getting the more optimistic I get about opposition building.