Because that has worked out for people so very well.

To tell us how this is all wrong and how the TPP will lead to a great world.

I would state my opinion of anyone who supports the TPP, but don't want to gamble on jury selection for the inevitable alert.

Pick one.

thread scolding anyone opposed to it.

To make trolling a career choice. Gotta pay the bills, i suppose.

But the devil's advocates always give themselves away because they alwways seem to "doeth protest too much".

"Concern troll" on DU = Corporate concubine.

Sorry for the ALL CAPS intro, but the fact remains that the TPP is nothing but a corporate coup, and Obama and Hillary should be ashamed for having anything to do with it. ]

I quote for those who don't have the time to go to the link and those who need to read this again:

State-owned enterprises would be obligated to 'act on the basis of commercial considerations'

Such agreed-upon obligations would require SOEs to “act on the basis of commercial considerations,” the letter states, and governments should regulate both state-owned businesses and private enterprises with impartiality. State-owned businesses would also not be allowed to discriminate against private companies when purchasing or selling goods, the letter suggests.

“SOEs are almost always state-owned because they have functions other than those that are merely commercial,” Jane Kelsey, a law professor at the University of Auckland, wrote in an analysis that accompanied the document, “such as guaranteed access to important services, or because social, cultural, development and commercial functions are inextricably intertwined.”

Relatively wealthy nations, like Canada, have many government-owned businesses, and the role of SOEs in developing nations has been noted by the UN as being extremely important since they don’t follow market dynamics which may disadvantage poorer citizens. A 2013 report from the European Center for Economic Policy Research found that, globally, SOEs included in the Forbes Global 2,000 list of companies had combined sales of $3.6 trillion, about the size of Germany’s GDP. That’s nothing to sniff at.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/new-leak-confirms-the-secretive-trans-pacific-partnership-is-a-horrorshow

OK. The US post office.

Some of you may remember the Enron squeeze on the cost of electricity in California. It was Texas v. California and Texas (Enron really, I am exaggerating, but maybe it was Texas interests) cornered the market and ran up electricity prices for private companies in California and the consumers that bought electricity from them.

While residents of other cities suffered under the manipulated and unfairly high electricity costs, LOS ANGELES did OK for itself.

Why? Because we have a publicly owned utility that considers the public's interest and not just those of big corporations like Enron.

How would this affect government requirements that housing include low-income units? Special telephone access for the disabled? Government funding for education? The existence of public schools and public universities?

Hopefully this is not a part of the actual TPP.

But we can see what the authors of the TPP are really hoping and aiming for, and it is anti-social. It is anti-democratic. It is more and more and more and more oligarchy until the poor and that fragment left of what used to be the middle class is choked to death.

This would nullify many of the provisions in our Constitution including the right of government eminent domain in some instances, the authority of the Congress to establish and favor a post office in the public interest. I wonder even how it would affect the way we organize our military.

What a hare-brained scheme! A bunch of business majors did this. Sorry. When I went to college, the students who couldn't make it in liberal arts switched to business majors. From that pool, the current CEOs and "leaders of (what is left of our sold-out) industry" have been drawn.

Not smart enough to major in useful subjects like languages, engineering, journalism, law, medicine, things you do or things that require intellectual prowess, these "morans" are trying to run the world.

I will admit to being a bit (more than a bit) of an intellectual snob in this post, but Good Lord, these "leaders of (what is left of our sold-out) industry" don't even have the common sense of most of our high school graduates. They have just barely enough education in how to manipulate people to make their billions. But they can't think beyond their noses and have no interest in history or learning where mistakes were made in the past.

Sorry to be such a snob, but I am just telling you not to trust these greedy folks whose understanding of the world is no greater than the common rapist''s understanding of a woman's body. They know where to find what they want and use it, but they don't know it as a vibrant, living being. They are so shallow.

What happens to government funded non-profits and government-funded charitable businesses in the scheme suggested in that letter.

All housing has to be run to be profitable.

This is horrendous. Who in the world wrote that letter.

A CORPORATE COUP, that is all the TPP is.

I hope it is voted down.

...we'll get to know what's in it.


...because SCOTUS or something...

[center]

[/center][font size="1"]From Wikipedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eugène_Delacroix_-_La_liberté_guidant_le_peuple.jpg)
(Public Domain)
[/font]

We shall never surrender.
[center]

[/center]

Whitehouse Comments: 202-456-1111

United States Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121

That was really pathetic.

and the 95% of us who aren't weeping cultists will have to live with yet another wall thrown up against stabilizing the economy or getting what most of the country both wants and needs

so you must too! The party loyalists will take us all down.

there's stronger reason to believe that to be true now.

... warning people about this malignant piece of treason. I loved Obama... until he appointed Summers and Geithner, but I could forgive him for that.

But for this?

Never.

He could have been one of our greatest presidents, but instead he chose to betray us all to the corporatists. Everything that comes out about the TPP is worse than the last revelation. Where is the outrage? Or has EVERY corporate-owned or influenced media outlet been ordered to NOT report on the TPP at all. MSNBC sure as hell has, and apparently so has NPR.

I'm deadly serious; we are all well and truly fucked if this thing becomes law. We cannot let it happen. It is pure evil.

When I left FB 2+ yrs ago, I was screaming too. No one gave a flying, just as they ignored GCC.

I'm glad that there are still rational people like you here.

Booga booga.

No details just outrage based on a leaked letter from 2013.

Not to mention the outrage is not over anything specific just plain outrage that there are negotiations going on over the handling of state run companies under a trade agreement. How frightening!

What a bunch of nonsense.

Click bait and nothing more.

The letter is too years old. It's not timely info.

... it's the content that matters. That, and the fact that it took this long to get it out of the claws of TPP negotiators. Complaining about the fact that its a couple of years old is a big, fat, floppy. red herring tossed out there to distract everyone from discussing WHAT IT SAYS!

Commercial and private controlled functions in the TPP. It is very informative. I had not thought how government functions would also be crushed by the TPP. Lots of details about how state functions should be given no preferance over the soul sucking corporations. It's very specific if you read it.

Yes the letter is 2 years old. But because of all the secrecy surrounding the trade deal, most of what we know about TPP is old. Maybe the goverment should release all the current details and then we wont have to guess at how badly we are being screwed.

This is probably the reason Communist China will never sign up. Their state run functions are controled by the Communist party and the party will never allow corporations and banks to dictate terms to them like the US and Europe does.

China's state capitalism is not similar to democratic socialism as developed in western democracies like Scandinavia, Canada, and etc.

For example, Canada's pharmacare and universal health care are NOT for profit, and are NOT capitalist enterprises in any way shape or form. They have an entirely different function.

Canada's universal health care program guarantees access to equal quality health care to all citizens regardless of economic strata, so regardless of whether they are homeless, out of work, struggling to make do with two or more part time jobs, struggling to make a small start up home business viable - whatever economic strata, whatever difficulty. This means that, for a homeless person with HIV a supply of pharmaceuticals is required and will be prescribed, and the viability of the program requires that the state, Canada, has the ability to negotiate massive batch deals with pharmaceutical companies on newly patented drugs, and requires that patent laws have reasonable sunset dates so generic drugs can be manufactured. Nothing of that is capitalism. Nor is it similar to China's economic model, which has developed from an entirely different ground.

That's just one example. That's why a lot of Canadians are worried that the extreme right wing corporatist Harper gov't, which has been negotiating the TPP in secret, has sold out Canada's entire history of social development -- because that's what his corporate masters want.

Hold your corn, ladies and gentlemen, we have a wiener!

Is the information wrong? Sorry, that was rhetorical, because not one of the TPP apologists have dared to offer any explanations as to why we should support the TPP. Seems all they have is to disparage those that oppose it.

LOL. At this point anything on this board about the TPP is confirmation bias. They really are trying hard, but they rely solely on self righteous outrage. They simple WANT it to be the case that the President actually intends to harm the American economy.

Will you profit from it or is it just willful ignorance?

trying to shove the abomination down our throats.

You gotta think you are standing on pretty weak ground.

The TPP may on balance turn out to be a bad deal but the only way we will find out is to wait and see what is in it when it is published. Rumor mongering based on old leaked documents is not information. It is an attempt to try to have people form an opinion without information.

People who make that leap based on the rumors are simpletons in my opinion who's opinions deserve no consideration as they appear to be people who do whatever is spoon fed to them.

It is explanation, not an argument, about the motivation for support from that poster.

But calling anyone who is opposed to TPP based on the information that has already been released a simpleton should be a compelling, persuasive strategy. Trolling always works.

He likes Obama so...

Lots of arm waving but no substance other than I read someone who told me not was bad


This is why folks like you can't be taken seriously. This dance has been done here so many times it is cliche.

The peanut gallery gets its hair on fire and have to be talked down over and over. It happened with the ACA most gloriously and the fud is still going on.

So spare me your finger waving.

Thank god we have your wise insults to guide us!

?w=584

Great knowledge there. I will take it into consideration.

herd animals as you have done throughout this thread. I've found that being an enormous asshole to anyone who disagrees with me to be an excellent way to convince them of my point of view. Of course, the intent here is not to convince anyone, it is to shout down anyone opposed to Obama's policy.

If you've read the publically available information on the TPP and still come to the conclusion that it will be beneficial to the average American, god help you. We certainly have no basis for further discussion. I found out long ago on the Yahoo boards that it was futile to argue with Republicans that based their stances not on available facts or evidence but on their "gut feeling" that George Bush couldn't possibly be wrong. Hero worship is a piss poor basis for political decisions.

But I know you are really trying to get everyone outraged based on your own outrage alone.

Like Krugman I think it's no big deal.

and kept SECRETLY locked-down in the Capital basement,

Then we wouldn't be left to cobble together our best guesses as
to WTF is in it, based on leaks, regardless of how "old" they are.

Maybe ALL our laws should be passed this way? Then anyone
who objects can be dismissed as "not knowing what the law
actually says".. just trust the Oligarchs .. they "know what's
best" .. right?

You are aware that the TPP will be published publicly for months before it is voted on right?

Plenty of time for it to be gone over and objections raised.

Well then, you've convinced us all.

All this hyper-secrecy with TPP has not gone un-noticed, even by NPR. Yet you are A-OK
with all this deliberate obfuscation and ham-fisted corporate manipulation of democracy. Got it.

Once people "are able to read it" it will be too late to stop it from being Fast-Tracked. Yep.

Senate leaders were all smiles Wednesday after they broke a 24-hour impasse and announced they had reached a deal on how to move forward on a fast-track trade negotiating bill. That legislation would give the president expedited authority to enter into a trade agreement with Pacific Rim countries, otherwise known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.

But how senators will vote on this bill depends largely on how they feel about TPP. And there's one problem.

"I bet that none of my colleagues have read the entire document. I would bet that most of them haven't even spent a couple hours looking at it," said Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who has acknowledged he has yet to read every single page of the trade agreement.

Because, as Brown explained, even if a member of Congress were to hunker down and pore over a draft trade agreement hundreds of pages long, filled with technical jargon and confusing cross-references –- what good would it do? Just sitting down and reading the agreement isn't going to make its content sink in.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, seen here speaking about the trade bill Tuesday, told NPR "I bet that none of my colleagues have read the entire document. I would bet that most of them haven't even spent a couple hours looking at it." Brown acknowledged he has yet to read every single page of the trade agreement.

For any senator who wants to study the draft TPP language, it has been made available in the basement of the Capitol, inside a secure, soundproof room. There, lawmakers surrender their cellphones and other mobile devices. Any notes taken inside the room must be left in the room.

Only aides with high-level security clearances can accompany lawmakers. Members of Congress can't ask outside industry experts or lawyers to analyze the language. They can't talk to the public about what they read. And Brown says there's no computer inside the secret room to look something up when there's confusion. You just consult the USTR official.

You would at least be aware of the process.

It has already been fast tracked. That vote already happened. Since you can't even be bothered to keep up with the process . Why in the world would I take anything you say seriously.

Yes yes I know some blogger has it all figured out and has declared it the end of civilization as we know it. Therefore we must all scream and stomp our feet despite the fact we don't have the details. Anyone who wants to wait to actually see what is in the agreement before declaring it Satan spawn is just an Obama toady.

Got it. Don't find it the least convincing especially clwhen so many spewing that garbage don't even know simple things like the fact it has already been fast tracked.

#109 "Once people "are able to read it" it will be too late to stop it from being Fast-Tracked"

Sorry if you misconstrued my ^ words to mean fast-track had not already passed, my point
is/was that since this IS the case, people being able to finally read the damn thing is "too
little too late" for opponents to effective stop it's passage, due to being shrouded in secrecy
under armed guard until the last minute, i.e. until fast-track authority was already law.

I don't expect you have much to say about this, since you adroitly avoided addressing it the
first time around; but you could surprise me.

Having been fast tracked it now awaits a final agreement. When/if that is ever reached it will be openly available for months before being voted on. If it cant be stopped on the merits in the months that it IS publicly available before the vote then it either A) wasn't worth stopping in the first place or B) was never going to be stopped no matter how much outcry there is.


More blah blah armed guard nonsense despite the fact that damn near every treaty that we have ever entered into was done in secrecy before the final vote exactly as this one is being done.

that you don't care about all the secrecy surrounding TPP.

That is all I needed to hear.

That you are just afraid of well the boogey man.

I prefer to come to my own conclusions. The herd is so very often wrong.

Native Americans for Manhattan? I get the feeling that they are playing the part of the Native Americans.

What's the alternative to TPP? Or do we just let what the article talks about happen and we make do the best we can?

http://www.thenation.com/article/the-geopolitical-big-bang-you-probably-dont-see-coming/

Doing nothing seems a solid option to me, almost always doing something dangerously foolish.

Any ideas?

Seems like a hit parade of all the boogiemen of the past 60 or 70 years mixed with Murikan Exceptionalism in yet another in a seemingly endless bullshit sales pitches to get us to slice our own throats.

If folks were sooooo worried about China then why do they have most favored nation status, buy their goods like there is no tomorrow, and borrow money from them? It's a scam.

Except well it isn't working out so well now is it?

Corporation don't get to sue for profits lost because of regulations. It's not like corporations are losing money now. It's just that they can't totally control the US all the time. And they don't like it. It's not as if any business is paying any appreciable tariffs now. Corporations and businesses are in the most friendly profit environment in the history of the world and they are still complaining. We don't need these terrible trade deals to trade.

to which countries submit their national sovereignty?

That's how trade deals work.

That's what these treaties are. It amazes me that DU spends so much energy on this subject without even learning how these systems actually work. The treaties set legal standards countries have to meet, and allow a legal framework for resolving disputes about those standards.

???

I no longer find it surprising at all.

And environmental groups have won cases they filed against foreign countries.

They don't get to sue under the TPP. They can sue under another agreement but not under the TPP, which was implied in the statement because the topic is ...wait for it...the TPP.

By the way, NO UNIONS OR CONSERVATION GROUP can sue another country. The only organitations that can sue (and have any hope of winning) under any trade agreement or any international trade regulation are Corporations and Countries. You are mistaken about Unions and Conservation Organizations because the media and RepubliCONS always misrepresent the facts.

When the US sues China under the WTO rules, the media reports it as if the Union filed the law suit which it can NOT. A US conservation group can only sue in their own country, like you and I can. They cannot sue China for their pollution, or Japan for hunting whales. Believe me if Conservation groups could sue other countries there would be nonstop lawsuits against most countries. Unions have to have a country's represenative file, while a corporation can file directly and do not have to go beg a president or politician to file for them. If the Sierra has chapter in Japan, then that chapter can sue under Japanese law NOT UNDER INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAW. Or the conservation group can convince a politician to file for them. But in NO CASE CAN UNIONS OR ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS FILE AGAINST FOREIGN COUNTRIES UNDER INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAWS.

You really need to learn how trade law works.

Won a suit over a foreign country through trade agreemnts or WTO rules. If Union can sue, why has no foreign Union sued the US for their anti-labor laws? If environmental groups can sue why have they NOT sued the US trough the WTO rule over GMOs, deadly pesticides and herbicides use? Give me some cases where your claims are proven.

No one gets to sue anyone unless a country erects tariffs or other regulations for a corporation that they don't also apply to their own corporations.

It really is as simple as that. The idea that corporations will sue anyone simply because they want more money is hyperbole.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]

There is specific language being developed in the TPP that allows for just that. Hence all the thousands of comments about it.

There isn't.

80% of the GDP covered by the TPP comes from countries where we already have free trade agreements. Another 12% comes from Japan, where the average tariff is 1.2%. 1.2% is utterly and completely dwarfed by currency fluctuation, so it's basically irrelevant for trade.

That means the TPP could "open up" 8% more GDP. And even in that 8%, the tariffs are not that big. We aren't in 1938 anymore.

The TPP will do virtually nothing for trade. What it does do is greatly help the export of US capital. So Romney and friends can make overseas investments about as safely as US investments. That way they can invest their money in factories overseas instead of building anything in the US.

Tune in!!111!! to an officially authorized television station or website sanctioned near you to find out.

You're in my group of good ones too!

Sounds like a Global Corporate Coup D'Etat.

Any candidate who supports this will lose imo.

because that is exactly what its.

Governments now exist to serve the interests of corporations.

I only hope that I live long enough to see the plutocrats hanging from the streetlighrs ala Mussolini.

destroyed untold numbers of lives, probably into the billions by now, when you consider how long they were doing this in Third World countries.

Which is the reason why they consider Peaceful Protesters and movements, like OWS to be terrorists, they are the movements that pose NO THREAT to the people, but by informing the people, they pose a huge threat to THEM.

Iow they are terrified when the people unite and now the people are going Global too, just like them.

Bravo!

When one is reminded of the human cost behind their personal comforts. The wages of sin.

Especially since it won't affect him in the slightest...

Assange is releasing this material because the trade agreements are secretive. I applaud him for it.
Also - when did trying to stop something one considers bad, even though it may not affect one directly, become a bad thing?
Have we reached that level of cynicism? Or do you think that any criticism of the TPP et al. is really only a shot at Obama, not dissatisfaction with the actual "agreements"?

that one of the monoliths of anti-government sentiment is primarily against the TPP because it weakens governments...

I just have a hard time reconciling that...

Then there's the whole "who benefits?" question, but people typically don't like to discuss that...

corporations, and that never turns out well for people. Assange is against the way governments wage war and spy. If you cannot separate those two concepts, and see governments as monolithic, and you must love it all or hate it all (depending on who is president, for some) then of course you cannot reconcile that.

Releasing the TPP information benefits the people, or at least they can see what is planned. It, of course, does not benefit Obama, the GOP, or the 1% to have that information leaked.

"Who benefits" is, also, such a bendy concept.

just saying.

and I thought you left this forum a good while back?

I also don't care.

If I was mistaken, I apologize. I have never donated myself, and therefore have rarely futzed with avatars.

edit: BUT I have never announced my comings and goings here on DU. If I post, I post.

something might adversely affect the lives of millions of other people.

Those are the people who are in committed to a better world, not just for themselves, but for everyone.

They are the ones who fought against injustices throughout history. Some of them could have lived comfortable lives, but they have that Liberal view of the world that it isn't about just them, that when people somewhere are starving eg, it should matter to all of us.

I know, here in the US under our current 'I'm okay so screw everyone else' system, those who think of others are the ones who are viewed as 'radical'.

I remember in the early days of Wikileaks someone asked Assange why he was doing what he was doing, why he was exposing, because yes, he was exposing corruption of rulers of governments around the world, causing him to be on their hit lists. He said he could not hear the cries of the oppressed and ignore them'.

THAT is why he is so highly regarded around the world and so despised by SOME in this country.

He had the gall to care about people other than himself. You should learn why he received humanitarian awards eg. But then, we don't care here about such things, do we? Sarah Palin says he is a 'traitor' so that's that.

Though how that can be since he is not a US citizen, only Sarah knows.

Call me radical too then.

Are they being bribed?

This sucks!

that was a joke, wasn't it?

Brainwashing on the other end...