that the "left" is about to chose one of it's architects and cheerleaders to represent us in the fall... up against a guy who's opposed to it... that'll be fun.

And there is no way I can unlearn that they enabled this when they had a chance to stop it. I don't think at this time that that is forgivable. I'm pretty much done with that "left".

that - as you know - they're not really left at all...

I had someone tell me that they're willing to vote for someone that they thought was corrupt -because they were a progressive.

Go figure. lol

Will sue to keep heritage care intact

Of course, they need to sharpen the "message" - in just one post, someone will tell us that this will save the poor Vietnamese farmers, no, wait, this will cause you to lose jobs and have depressed wages as low as a poor Vietnamese farmer gets, because you Americans are bad and deserve to suffer, no, wait, this will rein in China!, no, wait, this will not cause job losses, because NAFTA didn't cause job losses! no, wait - hey, most of those jobs are already gone, so why worry about what is left? - no, wait - and so on.

At the bottom - 99% of us are grist for the 1% mill.

All I can do is not vote for or support any politician who votes or shills/shilled for these things - but they don't really care.

standards and stronger enforcement so countries cannot evade these tough standards in the name of 'national sovereignty', I am with you. If killing the TPP will help get us there, I am with you, even if doing so will leave the existing rules of the WTO and NAFTA in force for a few more years. (Just a few I hope.)

If the alternative is a return to the "Wild West" days before FDR when it was every country for itself in the trading world and there were no 'rules', no thanks. A return to the pre-FDR days of Coolodge and Hoover with every country sticking it to every other country, "every man for himself!", no thanks.

standards and stronger enforcement so countries cannot evade these tough standards in the name of 'national sovereignty'," - I believe all that will be accomplished will be gutting national sovereignty so that corporations will rule. And corporations always go after less regulation and lower wages, in order to increase profits. Always.

that the immediate choice is the TPP vs WTO/NAFTA. I do not want to be the party of NO. I want to be FOR something.

IF TPP is worse than NAFTA/WTO, we should leave 'bad enough' alone. IF TPP is better than the existing institutions then the conclusion would be different.

Even getting rid of all trade agreements/organizations will not emasculate corporations. Just look at how they controlled Coolidge and Hoover to raise tariffs to protect them from foreign competition leading to the worst income inequality in our history. There were no trade agreements back then.

Larry Summers and the Secret "End-Game" Memo

Thursday, August 22, 2013
By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine

EXCERPT...

The year was 1997. US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks. That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks. It was like replacing bank vaults with roulette wheels.

Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game: "derivatives trading." JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as "assets."

Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers (soon to replace Rubin as Secretary) body-blocked any attempt to control derivatives.

But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?

The answer conceived by the Big Bank Five: eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet – in one single move. It was as brilliant as it was insanely dangerous.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo/