Critical Moment to Stop The TPP & Other Rigged Trade Agreements

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Critical-Moment-to-Stop-Th-by-Kevin-Zeese-Globalization_Globalization-WTO-WB-etc_Tpp-Trans-pacific-Partnership_Trade-140810-473.html



Critical Moment to Stop The TPP & Other Rigged Trade Agreements
By Kevin Zeese
OpEdNews Op Eds 8/10/2014 at 08:59:46

The moment facing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and its sibling the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (known as 'TAFTA') and the future approach to trade is reaching a critical stage. The TPP and TAFTA are attempts to get past the failed World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, but like the WTO, these new agreements are meeting significant opposition and obstacles. We are poised to stop these attempts to rig the international economy in favor of multinational corporations and move to a new model of trade that respects the rights of people and nature, but it will take a coordinated effort. We must be prepared for moves to thwart that effort and organize to avoid them.

The TPP and TAFTA represent a new era of deception and back-room dealing to pass laws that have nothing to do with trade, but that hand even greater power to multinational corporations to profit from everything no matter the consequences for the health of people and the planet. For the first time, the text of the agreements has been classified and they are being negotiated in secret with hundreds of corporate advisers and minimal involvement by Congress. In order to complete the agreements without transparency and public input, the President has asked Congress to grant him the authority to sign them, 'Fast Track,' a form of Trade Promotion Authority.

As elections get closer, Democratic Party leaders in Congress are getting the message out to inside-the-beltway activists groups that they are unifying to support giving President Obama some form of Fast Track. Recent letters from member of Congress to the President indicate support for trade with particular stipulations, but the overall message is to continue negotiating. Washington advocacy groups believe that they must also show support for Fast Track or they will find themselves without access or influence.

Rather than kowtowing to the usual 'on the table' threat from the corrupt bi-partisan Congress, the movement needs to tell them that the only thing on the table is a complete transformation from the failed global trade that rigs profits for big business at the expense of the ecology of the planet and the necessities of the people. It is time to declare the TPP, TAFTA and the Services agreements as dead, develop a new approach to trade and begin to renegotiate past trade agreements like NAFTA that are doing ongoing damage to the economy, planet and people.

[appal_jack]

1. Solidarity for workers and the environment across the globe!

More from the OP link:

The opposition is global. At the same time people were acting in the US,65,000 people protested the TPP in Mexico and more than 1.8 million in Australia called for the text to be made public. President Obama was greeted with TPP protests when he visited Asia as was Vice President Biden when he visited Japan. We just returned from an economic conference organized by the Center for Global Justice that included people from the US, Mexico, Australia, China, Israel, Guatemala and other nations, and the top area where people agreed to work together was to stop the TPP and transform global trade.

This occurred because the TPP has been a matchstick that has united people into a 'movement of movements' of more than 150 organizations (including our project Popular Resistance) that worked together to Stop Fast Track\. Activists concerned about food safety, worker rights, health care, finance, the environment, Internet freedom and more have organized scores of rallies and protests throughout the nation and around the world. There have been protests at trade negotiations even when they try to hide the location. The negotiators have become so fearful of protests that for the last negotiating session they fled 2,650 miles across Canada in an attempt to avoid them. The retreat failed as protesters exposed the TPP and brought 19,000 voices to the negotiations.

This is a well-written article on the growing global solidarity against rigged trade agreements. While the author does a good job of showing that it is transnational corporations who push these awful, secret treaties, he still falls into the trap of sometimes using the phrase "...the TPP is skewed in favor of one country, the United States," which is untrue for US workers and ecosystems (in fairness to the author, he concludes this sentence with "...and its transnational corporations&quot . Still, the US opposition's success will depend upon our citizens knowing that these secret deals are negotiated on behalf of the top 1/10 of 1% of our economic hierarchy, and everyone else be damned.

Massive k&r. I have called my Senators before on this issue, and I plan to again this week.

-app

[djean111]

2. I wonder if/when Hillary will start pushing the TPP. She worked on it, and has shilled it,

but maybe the burgeoning protests about it and other treaties will see her dumping it on Obama. Also been wondering if, for me, the TPP will be the last DU straw. If Hillary does get anointed, will the TPP be suddenly championed by her followers, and/or opposition to it declared wanting a pony or whatever.

I don't think the TPP or other treaties is skewed towards any one country, it is skewed towards the 1%, the global corporations, etc.

Supporting fast track and the TPP just to show support for Obama is odious. Odious.

[unhappycamper]

3. The $tate Dept is the $ales office for TPP. n/t

[Enthusiast]

4. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

"It is time to declare the TPP, TAFTA and the Services agreements as dead, develop a new approach to trade and begin to renegotiate past trade agreements like NAFTA that are doing ongoing damage to the economy, planet and people."

The President's position on these trade agreements is unacceptable. All Democrats should criticize the President's position. If we are united in our criticism he will have to relent.

[stillwaiting]

5. Secret trade agreements...

I tell you what!

[DeSwiss]

6. THAT WON'T HAPPEN UNLESS......

...we stop electing people to office who are trying to pass it.

- Or we could try magic. We haven't tried magic yet........

[Dustlawyer]

7. K&R!!!