USTR is rushing to complete theTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

[Bo Atkinson]

http://www.citizen.org/view.image?Id=2276
With the direct participation of 600 corporations and shocking levels of secrecy, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is rushing to complete theTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Branded as a trade agreement (yawn) by its corporate proponents, TPP largely has evaded public and congressional scrutiny since negotiations were launched in 2008 by the George W. Bush administration. Read More:
http://www.alternet.org/news/156059/trans-pacific_partnership%3A_under_cover_of_darkness,_a_corporate_coup_is_underway_/


Progressive Commentary Hour – 07/09/12
July 9, 2012 | Filed under: Progressive Commentary Hour
An in-depth look at the World Trade Organization – what goes on behind its lack of transparency in free market trade treaties to push forward corporate globalization. And a discussion into the Obama Administrations agenda in secretly negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement – which is being perceived as possibly …

http://media18.podbean.com/pb/a2f0a49558bd33cd2ffe1101ff5c5099/5003368a/blogs18/371244/uploads/ProgressiveCommentaryHour70912.mp3

Read more: http://prn.fm/2012/07/10/lori-wallach-trans-pacific-partnership-cover-darkness-corporate-coup-underway/#ixzz20jDjJyre
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

[jackovesk]

New World Order Blueprint Leaked

Page 1 of 4 page(s)

On June 12, 2012 a leaked copy of the investment chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was made public. This copy was analyzed by Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch and has been verified as authentic.

http://endtheillusion.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/newworldordersm.png

This agreement has been negotiated IN SECRET for 2-1/2 years and no information has ever been released until this leak. So why have the details of this negotiation been so secret? This agreement has been framed as a "free trade" agreement and yet out of 26 chapters only two have anything to do with trade. The other 24 chapters grant new corporate privileges and rights, while limiting governments and protective regulations.

If implemented, this agreement will hard code corporate dominance over sovereign governments into international law that will supercede any federal, state, or local laws of any member country. This TPP agreement alone should set alarm bells ringing, but if one steps back and looks at the larger picture, the future ramifications look even more ominous. After completing this reading, see what your conclusions are.

This video is a must see (http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/breaking_08_pledge_leaked_trade_doc) for anyone who wishes to more fully understand the implications of this secretly negotiated agreement. This article will also show how if this agreement is considered in the context of other recently passed legislation and developments, and the "dots are connected", the results would be total corporate global governance with an accompanying police state. In this new system the role of elected governments would be to serve as subservient agents for the transnational corporations, while the armies, police, and courts would serve the interests of these transnational corporations. The status of the member states would be locked-in, similar to countries once they are inside the Eurozone.

The TPP is being negotiated by some of the same cast of characters that brought us NAFTA, CAFTA and other so called free trade agreements. Some of the provisions in this document include the establishment of a parallel system of justice to be administered by 3 attorneys with no conflict of interest limitations. This 3 attorney tribunal could order sovereign governments to use taxpayer money to pay these transnational corporations for any environmental or regulatory costs that these corporations expended to meet local standards. Many existing laws would need to be rewritten and no new regulatory laws could be passed.

Governments that tried to pass regulations such as limits on the financial industry using risky bets such as derivatives would have the burden of proof to defend such regulations in a court system controlled by the corporations. The taxpayers would pay should a corporation prevail in one of these "private courts". In fact over $350 million of taxpayer money has already been paid out to corporations under the NAFTA style deals, because of zoning laws, toxic bans, timber rules and other regulations. This TPP agreement is like NAFTA on steroids.

This corporate tribunal bears a resemblance to the private US Supreme Court approved binding arbitration that corporations use to severely limit an individual's or a group's right to sue for damages. With binding arbitration we essentially have a " private corporate court system " outside of any government judicial system where the corporations choose the arbitrators and pay for their services. This creates an apparent conflict of interest because the arbitrators know that if they do not rule favorably to the corporations in the majority of cases, they will not be hired back.

The kangaroo courts setup by this TPP agreement will have binding corporate guarantees with both trade and cash sanctions. These cash sanctions would effectively transfer taxpayer money to transnational corporate coffers. Can you imagine the excesses we will see in the financial industry as they challenge regulations within their own private court system forcing governments to pay or eliminate them?

http://endtheillusion.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/courtmoneysm.png

The result of these corporate tribunals will be to setup a race to the bottom, where if one country chooses not to regulate something, then the corporations would be able to sue the other nations inside of the TPP to have taxpayers cover their losses for any such regulations. These other countries would be vulnerable to corporate led lawsuits to be decided in the corporate tribunals.

So how could such an extreme agreement that literally gives corporations everything they could possibly want have been negotiated with little or no resistance? The answer is that the ONLY way this agreement could ever pass is if everything is done in secret and the details never see the light of day. Lori Wallach , the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch recently said:

"These agreements are a little bit like Dracula. You drag them in the sunshine, and they do not fare well. But all of us, and also across all of the countries involved, there are citizen movements that are basically saying that this is not in our name. We don't need global enforceable corporate rights. We need more democracy. We need more accountability."

These talks have been so secret that Senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the Trade Committee in the Senate which has jurisdiction over trade agreements has been denied any access to information on the negotiations for over 2-1/2 years. This is a man who is on the Intelligence Committee and has access to nuclear secrets, yet he cannot see this TPP agreement? On the Democratic side, Senator Wyden has introduced legislation to force the Obama administration to make the details of these secret negotiations available to the Senate Committee.

On the Republican side, Representative Darryl Issa has also questioned the Obama administration's extreme levels of secrecy on this agreement. This is not a liberal cause, this is not a conservative cause, this is a common cause. It is vital that the public be aware of this TPP agreement because BOTH of the 2012 presidential candidates are supporting this agreement.

Since TPP was negotiated under the watch of the Obama administration, and Mitt Romney has indicated that he wants to quickly complete negotiations of this bill, the results of the next election will be irrelevant to the future status of this bill.

With the corporate takeover of sovereign governments, we see the very essence of a global fascist system. When most people think of fascism, they think of Hitler brown shirts marching through the streets, however, that is not the real definition of fascism. Fascism was defined by President Franklin Roosevelt:

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself.

That, in its essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group"

Polls show that most Americans from both major political party believe that money exerts far too much influence on public officials, effectively making these elected officials the "hired servants" of the wealthy elites. Both the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement believe that there is too much influence of money on our legislators. Our representatives are essentially the puppets while the corporate elites are the puppeteers. What this TPP agreement does is to take this puppet metaphor to the international level. Our elections have been reduced to the people choosing who will be the "hired servants" of the power elites from a list preapproved by these same elites.

This TPP agreement is nothing less than a power grab by the largest corporations on the planet to establish a legal framework for global corporate government making all sovereign governments subject to international law enforced by corporations. Passage of this bill would essentially be corporate coup against all member states.

So while this TPP agreement should frighten anyone who is still breathing, the threat does not end as the corporations make their ultimate grab for power. Here are some of the other forces that are potentially focusing the power of the corporate state.

Pages 2,3 & 4 of article can be found here...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/New-World-Order-Blueprint-by-Rudy-Avizius-120621-56.html

PS - This is a HUGE story wavydome...:yes4:

Pitty no-one really gives a sh#t...:faint:

[Bo Atkinson]

aye jackovesk,

what can we really say... you sure had super talking points there, good brother.... when i tell people things like this, their eyes immediately glaze over... i came to realize that the whole of society is utterly hijacked at gun point. afraid to be shot down for no reason whatsoever. so they just hold the breath at the sound of anything serious. lest they get the pink slip (get fired) tomorrow.... how will they pay tuition for kids, taxes, housing, food, car, loans etc.... just smile and hope to live another day, (they might as well say)....

besides society is rigged this way intentionally. corporatism is the modern feudalism and serfdom. people have voted in their situations.

i'll click on the few representative links, get the politician junk mail in return.

Basically i'm saying much less. just work on gardening and living systems here, locally. see how much of my personal diet can be raised at home. see what methods i can inspire for others, when the distribution networks break down. see what sorts of initiatives might work locally to bandage the breakdowns. remind them of the little dutch boy with his finger plugging the leak. i have developed pretty good ways to live on very little, reuse, recycle, rebuild for simpler bliss).

imagine what life will be like when communication networks break down. be there to help people cope in a slow-motion rural community.

[cloud9]

Every single time I read something like this I always wonder: And what are we doing about it? It's sad.