no standards." I'm tired of hearing these things from Republicans and I don't expect to hear them at all from Democrats but I do. No, some standards are not good enough. Low wages are not good enough. We will not settle. We will demand safe working conditions and living wages damn it.

This bill is bad enough the whole thing needs to be thrown out.

Love child of citibank and haliburton.

Labor doesn't bring any money to this table.
In this discussion labor is just one cost of doing business.

Business in this market is 100% oriented toward profiting from private capital investment. The TPP serves the interests of this investor class.

of us. This is the biggest sellout of the middle class and poor so far.

They can kill a labor activist and stop the union movement in its tracks and in doing so they keep the people poor and the labor cheap. That is not a good deal for anyone. It is an old story. And then we wonder why we are at war in so many countries. Well we are lucky we are not at war in all of them.

This is a GLOBAL trade deal, and as of 2014, twelve countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region have participated in negotiations on the TPP: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.Should the United States. The countries in bold make up NAFTA. This is President Obama's chance to renegotiate those harmful worker's rights and environmental provisions in NAFTA, making them enforceable (which they are not now) just as he campaigned on in 2007.

We can't take a Cheney-esque tunnel-vision route and withdraw from the trade deal, because if we do, China will be more than happy to step in and take over where the U.S. left off. Do we want that?

It is bad for the US.

But if you believe the TPP is better left in the hands of China, then? You have faith that they'll negotiate better deals for American workers and the environment? Because that's the alternative should the U.S. withdraw and curl into a fetal position on this. Those are our only choices.

And I don't trust, in any way, that an agreement that involves over 480 corporations and zero unions.

I do believe that the US can do better without it. Corporations would benefit but the average American would not. In fact, it would hurt us.

The parts we do know about do not help the environment. They so not help the economy. And the idea that it's us or China, not buying it.

China doesn't like the negotiations. They like their slave labor and unenforceable environmental provisions. The moment the United States withdraws, you can bet your life that China, that has overtaken the U.S. as the largest economy, will step in and have the rules written in their favor. They have that clout.

President Obama warned us about that, and I trust him because he should know.

I don't believe the U.S. can do well if we remain outside of the negotiations. Yes, U.S. corporations would benefit from it but the American worker will, too. Why? Because it would level the playing field for U.S. corporations against Asian corporations (surprise! They have multinational corporations, too!), and it would take away the incentive for U.S. corporations to outsource jobs to countries that don't have worker's rights, the right to bargain, but do have lax environmental laws which makes it cheaper to do business overseas, as is now the case.

So it's not true that a successful TPP deal will hurt us. You're basing that on guesswork and prejudice because of NAFTA and CAFTA rather than President Obama's track record of always working toward strengthening the American worker's wages and American jobs.

If the Chinese conditions are so deplorable how could any American company even righteously consider operating in such a God forsaken place?

Mine aren't results of "guesswork" They are fact-based, and I provided a few links for you to read (which, I'm certain, you haven't bothered to since, well, that would kill the prejudice).

It's not "if" China has deplorable working conditions and slave labor. It's a FACT.

From the Guardian:

This is what Obama despises and these traitorous American companies are doing this daily in China.

Obama must include the cease and desist clause so these despicable American companies don't continue these atrocities

China's gonna do what China wants to do, and a "cease & desist" clause in some paperwork isn't going to stop that.

The same is true for Viet-Nam, Malaysia, and all the other 3rd World Countries where American manufactures are working Slave Laborers.

Do you believe that the owners of the Corporations that violate these rules (already in existence) should serve Jail Time & have their Assets stripped?
I do.

The way to stop the outrages is to STOP the Americans perpetrating it.
Right now, they are the ones WRITING the damned thing....
and you trust them?

for, the TPP is not going to help although it will globalize worker's rights and put in place enforceable rules in protecting those worker rights as well as the environment. If you're seriously interested in researching what the TPP is all about and how it can give the United States the advantage against the largest economy in the world - China - read further.

The ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) will have teeth when the TPP passes, according to experts who understand economics and trade laws (read their background at the link below and click the + next to "About the Authors&quot :

By David Autor, David Dorn and Gordon H. Hanson, WaPo, March 12, 2015:

..if we pass the TPP or the TTIP.

Brings back that nostalgia when Bill Clinton sold us NAFTA.
Why should we trust the scavengers that brought us NAFTA, CAFTA, and the other "Trade Deals" that has brought the American Working Class to its knees?

You just have to trust that the Billionaire CEOS and their Lobbyists are sitting around the TPP negotiation table discussing raising Wages & Benefits for Workers.

Lets list ALL the good things NAFTA brought to the US Worker:
(I can't think of any, so you start.)

and G.W. Bush (CAFTA) committed when passing their respective trade agreements? That would explain your prejudice and why you're mind remains closed even when you've been given ample supporting evidence why the TPP is GOOD for American workers. Well then, there's no discussing an issue with a mind so prejudiced and closed as yours, bvar. Thank you for wasting my time.

...to put in protections for LABOR & The Environment?
YES. He did "say" those things.
Why not attack Obama for saying the same things I just did?

Yes, he's said it and he's even on video promising to renegotiate the unenforceable provisions in NAFTA.
Why should I attack him for that?

Please provide the text from the TPP where President Obama or his negotiating team have included these ironclad protections for Workers and the Environment.
What Obama says is not always what Obama does.


One other big problem with your post:
In Campaign 2008. Candidate Obama promised to immediately call the PM of Canada
and fix this problem. not 6 years later.

You are trying to equate the TPP with the Campaign Promise about NAFTA made over 6 years ago. The two are not the same, and had he exposed his plan for the TPP,
I doubt he would have been elected.

which is another reason why I believe Senator Bernie Sanders running for (and perhaps even winning) the presidency would be detrimental to hard-fought liberal values if we can't give him a Congress that's just as liberal.

A President Sanders would be made a lame-duck, one-term president in the worst way possible by this center-right-to-full-rightwing Congress, and would only ingrain the belief among a-political Cons and Mods alike that liberal ideas aren't shared by the majority of the American people (when they, in fact, are).

In campaign 2008, candidate Obama couldn't have predicted the financial collapse brought on by 12 years of a Republican Congress and eight years of a war-mongering Republican president. When he entered the White House, he was slapped in the face with 750k jobs leaking from our economy every month, soaring deficits, the true amount of the two wars that were kept off the books but were quickly added just for him, and the free-fall of the auto-industry. I think he was a little too busy trying to get his cabinet in place while having to simultaneously counter these gargantuan problems that stupid American voters/non-voters put upon this country by voting Republican no matter what.

this country, the corporate class and the drive for profit and greed above all else. And the clueless idiots who long ago flocked to buy cheap and poorly made products from toys and toothpaste to clothes and electronics as planned.

~ Not one child will be sacrificed on the altar of profit ~ Mother Jones

Mother Jones was a formidable champion who fought for the rights of American workers in the 19th and early 20th century Industrial Era Gilded Age. She brought needed attention to the abuses and maiming of child workers in mills, mines and factories.

In 1903 she led 'The Children's March' of 100 child textile workers of Philadelphia who walked to 'show the New York millionaires'. They marched on from the city to Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York to Sagamore Hill, the home of President Theodore Roosevelt to discuss the grievances.
As a result reforms were made for children and later adults.

We've experienced this system, fought it and were better as a nation until Reagan, Milton Friedman and others started the regression, soon picked up and spread internationally by the globalists. It's not going to end well, it never does.

to China in the first place. So now we're in a 'catch 22' situation of pressure or else, where boogeyman China will step in if we don't. What a global crock, corporate world rule that began 22+ years ago and probably earlier. So much for sovereign nations, it's actually rule by corporations now via paid pols, lobbyists and useful collaborators. The only ones who don't know it are regular people and peasants who are not in and never will be in the investor class. Descent to pre Enlightenment feudalism with tech, security and survival for the wealthiest only. Gonna be painful and ugly-

Which has outweighed his work for the American worker.

I have read what has been leaked. I have listened to the rhetoric. I know who is pushing for this and who has problems with it. And there is absolutely no reason for a fast track.

This is a bad treaty.

So someone is there to advocate for the American workers

it's immediately dead. No chance for China to step in...US withdrawal likely terminates the trade negotiations; we're the lynchpin of the talks. No United States means No TPP. No other involved nation wants a US-non-included TPP.

No more FTAs ever. While we're at it, let's start withdrawing unilaterally from the ones we are in.

title, but it's meant to refer to the current trade deal being negotiated. Nice try at diversion, though, Chan.

And with China already writing their own trade rules, you can BET that should the United States withdraw, they'll step in to fill the economic vacuum in that part of the world - and that would hurt American jobs.

Be cognizant of the fact that, in 2014, China has surpassed the United States as the largest economy in the world, and this has granted them the status of largest economic power. Do you seriously think they'd sit on the sidelines with their version of a trade agreement listlessly in their hand? Wake up.

Here an excerpt from no less than THREE economic experts, David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson in their WaPo piece:

David Autor is a leading labor economist and associate head of the economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
David Dorn is a professor of international trade and labor markets at the University of Zurich.
Gordon H. Hanson is director of the Center on Emerging and Pacific Economies at the University of California, San Diego.

Last edited Mon Apr 27, 2015, 10:10 AM - Edit history (1)

and cry about the need for environmental protections in the global market place.

All the things they claim to want for the United States and working Americans is exactly what President Obama is negotiating in the TPP - fighting for global worker's rights including the right to organize and collectively bargain.

The TPP is going to go through whether the United States is part of the negotiations or not. We need to ask ourselves...who would we rather have writing the rules of the trade deal? President Obama of the United States or President Xi Jinping of the "People's Republic of China"? Because should President Obama withdraw from the negotiations, China will be MORE than happy to fill that vacuum. Is that what proponents opponents to an improved trade deal really want?

can trade with us now without the TPP?

This revived Cold War Domino Theory isn't convincing anyone.

If China is the boogeyman, than all traitorous American companies operating in China should cease and desist production and return to America

and Trumka has been told their is no violence provision in the TPP labor clause. Do you even bother to read these posts?

I want all sectors of society, not corporatists, writing these provisions and open for all to see.

I want all multinationals in countries with deplorable standards, including China, that are making profits to cease and desist until these countries come up to standards.

If Obama is truly seeks change, this cease and desist demand should be Chapter 1.

This a deal for greedy corporatists and were suppose to be happy with a few unenforceable social issues and the social financial gains goes to guess who?

The reasons that those murders dropped from 100 to 28 is because of the work headed by President Obama. Let me repeat that, just in case you've missed it. The reason that those murders dropped from 100 to 28 is because of the work headed by PRESIDENT OBAMA.

Do you even do any analytical thinking?? Or is your dislike for this president blinding you for any reasonable thought?

“Addressing violence against union leaders and organizers and prosecuting perpetrators of union-related violence is a critical part of our effort to advance fundamental worker rights,” Bates said. “In Colombia commitments in this regard were a key part of the Labor Action Plan negotiated by the Obama Administration in connection with the Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement.”

Bates pointed to USTR data that shows killings of union organizers dropped from about 100 a year before the pact to about 28 killings a year now.

Wonderful, so you think 28 dead people are acceptable

You been told that Trumka said there are no violence provisions in the labor section of the TPP by Reif and Froman which means murders will continue in other countries.

Amendments are the job of Congress

If there are no cease and desist teeth in TPP, then you will strongly speak against it.

Explain to me who sues in the ISDS.

NOWHERE did I claim that "28 dead people are acceptable". That's what you make of it. I presented the numbers to show the glaring difference between what happened before President Obama stepped in, and the numbers now that he has, and not to praise the deaths of 28 innocent people. You making it appear as if I'm a-ok with that number is beyond the pale.

Congress sets the guidelines but leaves trade negotiations to the Executive. That has always been the case under other presidents. Why change that under this president?

Congress can vote down any negotiated deal that the president presents. But allowing Congress to add amendments during negotiations will effectively kill any trade deal because it won't give the president the credibility he needs to negotiate with other countries on behalf of and to the benefit of the United States.

This Congress took 166 days to confirm a perfectly qualified and non-controversial Attorney General to replace an AG they hate. One hundred sixty-six DAYS! Republicans held out voting for her in order to force abortion language into the trafficking bill. You don't think they'll try something like that in negotiations for a trade deal??

So if Obama saves lives, why didn't he save these 28 lives too? Read Cali's Link at post # 60 for other reasons the death toll has dropped.

How do you know the other countries won't like the new amendments? Are you psychic?

The Repubs are Obama's strongest supporters on TPP; Cruz, Boehner, McConnell lovely people they are

Does the TPP GUARANTEE we will win all ISDS cases with an enlarged 12 country agreement for the infinite future?

Trumka says NO VIOLENCE CLAUSE IN LABOR SECTION OF TPP. How do we control future murders?

Are silly sounds higher pitched?

especially if it helps the Working Class.
I am NOT comfortable having him "negotiation" for me, a common worker.

Yes. I know, based on your past posts. You've never cared for this president, so your bias is now blinding you for all the good work he's already done on behalf of working Americans. With that kind of prejudice, President Obama wouldn't be able to get your approval - or half the credit - even IF he worked twice as hard as any other president before him.

As surprising as this is, It's the fact he testified to it that's surprising.

Won't be surprised if he found dead soon

our president was white. for too long we've been told to stfu. by the white male union heads.

no, i will not go to the back of the bus! or under the wheel well!

Gotta self identify, Third way Manny....

I think there's a term for that!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

It's either satire that's a bit overly subtle, or mind-bogglingly stupid.

International corporations have had the United States government act as Pinkertons.

For all we know, this trade deal means it's okay to treat this country the same way as Honduras or Nicaragua.

Some Borders book store is talking about going union? Identify the mastermind and arrange an accident.

But that would require thought.
Thought about what the *point* was of e.g. the Reagan wars against the Chilean people and the people of Latin America in general, of the right-wing death squads schooled in the School of the Americas, USA. Of all that US terrorism.

None of it has been oriented toward strengthening labor and general human rights.
It's all been oriented toward a feeding frenzy of war profiteers and no-holds-barred economic exploitation.

So what's different now?

The Internet exposes all of this to a new generation.

That author isn't speaking from ignorance. Not at all.
That's *taunting*, from a position of awareness.
Likewise HRC (and her supporters) aren't ignorant when she BFFs mass murdering war criminals like Kissinger.

PNAC is embedded in high places in both the Dem and Rep parties and everyone knows this - everyone knows that the PNAC program is moving forward on a greased skidway.

The internet can "educate", I suppose, but I think we must also realize that the perps of RW fascist horror know exactly what they're doing, and why, and I'm speaking all up and down the line -- from Kissinger and Koch and the CEOs of Haliburton and ..., to their tame politician/puppets, all the way down to the omnipresent internet go-to team of anonymous enablers who populate even forums like this, OPs like this.

(By the way, I'm not disagreeing with you - or I don't think I am. I'm just pissed off that this horror has been going on for so many decades, all my life, and that all these good people, who know better, continue to enable it and promote it with their actions, even their chickenshit votes for the perps, anyway.)

As a result they have had decades to write up all the intelligence on those who oppose their agenda. There is a motivation to embellish their threat level to justify radical acts on our part.

Imagine how the pro-capitalist fanatics in today's intelligence community would have written up domestic coal miner's unions of the turn of the 20th century if they'd had the chance. Their writeup on Jimmy Hoffa probably reads like The Sopranos.

Your comment sparked the question, how far is the current situation from the one that gave birth to and fertilized and payed homage to the Pinkerton agency?

Not far at all.

They don't like unions, and they are amoral killers and liars.

eta:

"History has proven that greedy, evil people will never kill for money."

-- Bartcop

Murder doesn't violate this agreement?

This is one-way justice and everybody else be damned.

is delusional or a liar

100!

Way to go, Enthusiast.

By the way...the AFL-CIO SUPPORTED building the Keystone XL Pipeline, and wrote Congress to push to pass the bill - which they did. Remember that pipeline bill that President Obama VETOED.

Who are you going to believe? President Obama, who is renegotiating NAFTA through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the president of the very Union that pushed for passing Keystone XL in Congress?

By the way? You do know that the TPP will move on with or without the United States, don't you? And that if President Obama doesn't get us the best deal possible, things are going to get a helluva lot worse for American workers if the United States isn't part of the negotiations.

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U.S. workers and for enforceable environmental provisions, right, Enthusiast?

I mean, the greatest irony is that the push to oppose the TPP is coming from labor groups that are completely oblivious - or pretending to be - to President Obama's objective to globalize the rights of working people at a central, fully enforceable part of his trade deals - including the right to organize and collectively bargain - provisions that neither NAFTA nor CAFTA have included. Is is so important to you and others to remain territorial and to avenge NAFTA than it is to ensure the rights of working people in the United States and elsewhere?

Once again...we can NOT afford not to be part of the negotiations in TPP that will happen with or without United States input. Won't it be better to be a part of the negotiations, in fact, LEAD those negotiations (as President Obama is doing) in order to get the best deal possible and to globalize worker's rights?

While that might be the theory behind the push for the TPP we know that multinational corporations only see workers rights as an impediment to profit. That is simply the nature of the beast.

It's just too bad that we were sold a bill of goods on NAFTA and CAFTA. It was a bitter lesson on why we should never trust these bad corporate players. These corporations have this nation by the ass. We have seen the undue influence these corporations are exerting on our elected representatives during the election process and the legislative process. Is there any wonder there is mistrust?

Don't expect a guy from the (used to be) industrialized Midwest to embrace free trade. Ain't gonna happen.

This is all too familiar. I am against the TPP and the TTIP and I will remain against them.

China cannot step-in because most of the other negotiating parties view them as the hostile economy of the region and will not enter a FTA with them. The driving engine of this FTA on the other side of the world is exclusion of China. It's just a good boogieman for a President pushing an FTA that is widely opposed by his own party but owed in favors to political allies.

It's important to me that Democrats embrace the repudiation of FTAs. Unilaterally withdraw and impose tariffs. Let them sue us in US courts as we refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of trade courts set up within FTAs we're no longer part of.

been living under a rock (perhaps afraid of that "boogieman", as you call it?).

Since 2014, and for the first time in 140 years, China has become the largest economy in the world, surpassing the United States. Do you understand that? China is the most powerful economic power today. And you don't think that's a threat? Get informed.

Trade isolationism is better than this FTA.

Isolationist thinking is Cheney-esque and it's the kill-blow to U.S. economy and U.S. jobs. If we don't level the playing field by renegotiating unenforceable and detrimental worker's rights and environmental provisions in NAFTA, and draft enforceable rules on both worker's rights and environmental provisions (which President Obama is trying to do via the TPP), we'll continue on this downward spiral.

I would suggest you start reading up on exactly what the TPP seeks to do rather than listen to hair-on-fire rhetoric.

We've been a "global economy" for over 200 years,
and the ancient empires were Global Economies for thousands of years.
What makes us any different?

As much as your hair is on fire about CHINA,
there is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it.
It WILL remain the largest economy in the World.....until they overextend their wars for resources and go broke.....just like us....just like the Romans.
We ARE a nation if decline, and the TPP won't help anyone here except the 1%.

for several of China's KEY trading partners - something that's missing today. This will pressure China to meet some of those standards and cease its attempts to game global trade to impede foreign multinational companies.

So no. My hair's not the hair that's on fire about China. I don't give in to knee-jerkery, and I have three experts who wrote on the subject who agree with President Obama, not Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or you, who is allowing your distrust (dislike?) for President Obama blind you for the bigger picture.

"Tim Reif and Mike Froman reminded Trumka that violence is not part of the labor chapter"

How about the environmental chapter, is Death (murder) from toxic pollution actionable and enforceable?

How about the Pharma chapter, are debilitating and lethal drugs actionable and enforceable?

and on and on we go

Trade deals are about profit for the big corporations and labor is swept to the dust bin.

AFL-CIO's Lee said she was not satisfied with the response. "I concede that they care. I concede that they are acting to address the labor violence. The question is whether USTR considers murder to be a violation of the labor chapter. That is the question," she said. "The point is that USTR has informed us that labor-related violence does not constitute an actionable violation of the labor provisions in our FTAs. The quote [from Bates] skirts that question."

Bates, asked directly, said that yes, the labor chapter covers violence against organizers. Lee remained unconvinced. "But does USTR consider labor-related violence to be an actionable breach of the labor chapter? Before President Trumka gave his comments at the Guatemala press briefing, Tim Reif and Mike Froman reminded Trumka that violence is not part of the labor chapter," she said.

Lee forwarded an example of the U.S. government declining to engage in the issue of violence in a report on Honduras. "In addition, the Submission alleges that the GOH has failed to investigate and prosecute violence and threats against trade unionists, noting that violence against trade unionists and the failure to fully investigate such violence can have a broad chilling effect on the exercise of workers’ rights. The OTLA does not make findings with respect to the issue of labor violence in this report of review; however, the United States Government (USG) will continue to engage extensively with the GOH on this issue."

Lee continued: "As As to Colombia: we want to know what action the US is taking if it thinks killing trade unionists is actionable, given that 105 have been killed since the Labor Action Plan went into effect."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/22/fast-track-trade_n_7113412.html

Jeeez, are trade agreement supposed to cover traffic, divorce, etc., laws. That really would be threatening sovereignty.

dispute mechanisms in 2500 trade agreements?

Whenever I hear people talking about "sovereignty," I think of right wingers like Sovereign Citizens.

in Post #57 does that classify you as a Right Winger?

I don't think we are on that good of terms with countries doing this kind of stuff. And truthfully, whether they are right or wrong, labor "leaders" in these countries are prone to violence. They are more like the NRA or some militia, than our labor unions.

Maybe we should require them to use a USA union -- Columbia affiliate -- then the unions would be happy to expand their membership and would probably support the TPP.

We need an international court though the treats them as equals.

One with teeth.

Slavery never went away. It just comes in a choice of colors now.

Where did you see/read anyone "opposing jobs for 'folks' in other countries"?

From whose a$$ did you pull that one out of? The propaganda talking points hand-out sheets distributed by the Heritage Foundation or the US Chamber of Outsourcing?

downward pressure on your wages. Where did you pull your greed, from the same folks who support the Heritage Foundation? I can play your game too.

Now you're just winging it.

Msg to Hoyt's employer:

You might want to replace him with someone more effective at promoting the propaganda; he didn't fool anyone here.

you have yours. And you are too myopic to see how it might help you longterm.

I'm a staunch advocate of carrot-or-stick diplomacy: you want access to our economy, you fix your shit. You don't want to fix your shit, not only won't you be getting preferential access to our economy...you can have tariffs!

What have we become?

Obama's allies in this Fast Track/TPP debacle.

with which he could ally himself with Republicans.

about the direction the Democratic party was taking. I'll summarize-the Democratic party is becoming a kinder gentler Republican party.....