WikiLeaks Reveals Global Trade Deal Kept More Secret Than the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Source: Truthout
The whistleblower and transparency website WikiLeaks published on Thursday the secret draft text of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), a controversial global trade agreement promoted by the United States and European Union that covers 50 countries and is opposed by global trade unions and anti-globalization activists.
Activists expect the TISA deal to promote privatization of public services in countries across the globe, and WikiLeaks said the secrecy surrounding the trade negotiations exceeds that of even the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) that has made headlines in the past year.
Demonstrations erupted in Geneva in April as diplomats met in secret for the sixth round of negotiations over TISA, which would cover international trade in a wide range of service industries ranging from finance and telecommunications to transportation and even local utilities such as water. Protesters demanded that the draft text be released, but it has remained secret until now.
Public Services International (PSI), a global trade union federating public service workers in 150 countries, has reported that TISA threatens to allow multinational corporations to permanently privatize vital public services such as healthcare and transportation in countries across the world.
Read more: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24486-wikileaks-tisa-global-trade-deal-kept-more-secret-than-the-trans-pacific-partnership
Uncle Joe
(58,112 posts)Thanks for the thread, Joe Shlabotnik.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)The TPP was/is just the warm-up shaft for this one?
Earth_First
(14,910 posts)Once the general public became privy to TPPA, a splinter working group came up with TISA in order to work under the secrecy they prefer.
After the TISA exposure...what's next?
elzenmahn
(904 posts)...and any, ANY body who calls him/herself a "Democrat" does not deserve our support if he or she supports this bullshit-of-a-trade-deal, or anything else like it.
alsame
(7,784 posts)the 99% across the globe are going to have to put aside our differences and band together against the Masters of the Universe and their plans.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Are you ready to make an alliance with them? It probably wouldn't be a permanent one, but we'll have to hammer out our differences after we save the planet from global warming "deniers" who just happen to have a stake in the extended future of fossil fuels.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)They are a vocal minority. The "conservatives," and by that I mean traditionalists, maybe. That is a problem in many European countries, people who vote for conservatives because their parents did or they grew up in a certain area and they never questioned. But they don't have the large swaths of uneducated voters that we do as ignorance is not quite as celebrated. They also don't have the religion problem for the most part. I believe the way we have gotten this far is by listening to their caterwauling and then thinking they matter. They don't.
Liberal parties have gained majorities many times in Europe as well as here recently. The trouble is, the liberal politicians have sold out to finance and the corporations, and so they do not deliver on their promises. That leads to disillusionment and malaise. But that doesn't mean that most of the citizens do not agree on liberal ideas: they do. The first step is to realize the politicians and corps do not have our "best interests" at heart. In fact, they actively despise us. From that, all else follows.
pscot
(21,023 posts)The politicians are afraid of the Tea Party. No one is afraid of Liberal Democrats.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)The tp does have the pukes running scared because they don't say "I'll vote for whomever is the nominee." That means you have no power and the party can do whatever it wants but will still get your vote. Liberals should have yanked the party to the left a long time ago, or at the very least learned the tactics of the tp, but they were enthralled by their politicians and, not being suspicious by nature, allowed themselves to be betrayed again and again.
But if the 99% are going to stand up and not walk sheepishly into the slaughterhouse (mesmerized by their cell phones) they are going to have to learn the lessons of Labor. They are going to have to unlearn the lies that have been fed to them. Liberals provide a solution to the corporate overreach of today. The far right that has been licking the boots of the "job creators" does not.
beerandjesus
(1,301 posts)I am ready to make that alliance. The baggers are right to be pissed, and they're pissed about a lot of the right things, they've just been manipulated very effectively by the Republicans (as, I dare say, many pissed-off liberals have been manipulated by the Democrats).
I'm happy to make an alliance that leads to the end of plutocracy. We can argue about abortion later.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Robin Hood is online.
pa28
(6,145 posts)lark
(23,003 posts)They would also have the same exorbitant expenses.
What progress!
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)antigop
(12,778 posts)But a big idea is taking shape that could revitalize the U.S.-European partnership for the 21st century. It was the talk of Berlin and Hamburg when I was there a week ago, and theres a similar buzz in Washington. The idea is free trade specifically, a trans-Atlantic free-trade agreement which Ill optimistically call TAFTA.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tipped the U.S. hand on Nov. 29 when she said at the Brookings Institution, We are discussing possible negotiations with the European Union for a comprehensive agreement that would increase trade and spur growth on both sides of the Atlantic. She noted the long-standing barriers to trade and market access that would have to be removed to make any such deal possible, such as the European Unions protectionist agricultural rules.
Clinton is said to envision an economic NATO a comprehensive agreement covering trade in goods, services, investment and agriculture. Indeed, a joint working group of U.S. and E.U. officials is about to release a final report arguing for such a comprehensive deal.
Curious as to whether Clintons speech was just window dressing from a departing secretary, I asked the White House this week whether the TAFTA talk is real. The answer was yes: Obama is considering making a trans-Atlantic trade initiative an important part of his second-term agenda. Combined with the North American Free Trade Agreement in Latin America and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Asia, this could create a global trading system that might be an enduring part of Obamas legacy.
pscot
(21,023 posts)Do we really want this woman to be the next president of this country?
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)antigop
(12,778 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)No matter who the candidate is they will support this.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)I won't vote for her; I don't care if the Democrats nominate her.
villager
(26,001 posts)...though that's sort of a rhetorical question, at this point
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)840high
(17,196 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)Another anti democratic power grab by global corps with Hillary's fingerprints all over it.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)pscot
(21,023 posts)if this shit keeps up. Fucking Milo Minderbinder is taking over.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)Democracy is so inefficient, you know. Things will be running so much more smoothly when the job creators make all the decisions. It's their world, after all; they're just letting us work in it.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Water wars has been an open secret for a few years now.
The idea of making scads of money from jacked up water prices has been making Nestle's and other players drool, for a long time.
merrily
(45,251 posts)I meant for breathing, not for flying. Air for flying has always been privately owned.
Yet, we are not supposed to tax the rich more than the poor.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)JustinBulletin
(71 posts)They won't be happy until they control every drop of water on the planet because all of the oil, gas and minerals just is simply not enough for them. Next they'll find a way to privatize the air we breath.
Thanks for the heads up.
mike_c
(36,214 posts)What are they trying to hide from us?
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)Just goes to demonstrate the international solidarity of the ruling class.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Republicans are not ratting out Democrats on these things, or vice versa.
And Pelosi and Boehner just held hands to tell Obama he did not need to ask Congress for approval to send troops to Iraq (just like no one needed Congress for the Vietnam "Era" or the Korean "Police Action." What is left of the Constitution, I wonder?
Nihil
(13,508 posts)> What is left of the Constitution, I wonder?
... just an old mouldering manuscript in a glass coffin, kept as a museum piece
to remind people how naiive the common herd really are.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Not even when it is the ONLY thing that could save us:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5114000
merrily
(45,251 posts)That is obvious from the notes of the secret meetings of the Framers while they were deciding how the government should be structured. And they really allowed the common herd a vote only on House members. Everything else, including who the Senators were, was either by vote of Congress or by vote of state legislature. Hence, the Senate got more powers than did the "elected by the rabble" House.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/yates.asp
And who knows what was deliberately left out of even the notes of the secret meetings? They, of all people, would have been careful about what they put in writing. I've read minutes of meetings that I've attended and noted the "sanitization" of the minutes, as compared with the actual meeting.
For that matter, why were the Framers even holding secret meetings about the Constitution?
Forgive my rant. I am just weary of Framer worship.
We're so damned brainwashed!
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)All sorts of things in the Constitution have been crossed out and words added in spots, just like they were on that barn wall. In the end, the people we elected to enforce the Constitution are sitting around a table in the Manor House and you can't tell the pigs from the men.
merrily
(45,251 posts)come sit next to me." Alice Roosevelt Longworth (daughter of Teddy).
Or words to that effect.
I am among the recently disillusioned. You sound as though you may have been disillusioned before I was.
wildbilln864
(13,382 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Fuck this globalization bullshit.
historylovr
(1,557 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Right now, it is all about the water.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)elias49
(4,259 posts)If not for them, we could all live in blissful ignorance.
I expect to see posts from the anti-wikileaks anti-Assange brigade soon.
TBF
(31,922 posts)toby jo
(1,269 posts)Can we stick 'the sky is falling' schtick back in its' can and just think about it?
I've listened to people wail over a 'global religion', but, aren't we one people? They've wailed over a global monetary system, but, it's a good idea.
The planet is reorganizing itself. Not a biggie. Calm down. We're one race, we're one big thinking organism and it's natural to become increasingly organized over time. Maybe there will be one world court system down the road, with allowances for local ordinances. Maybe we'll have a better food distribution system and education system. I'm into sharing what's there.
When you think about it, the lines of demarcation that are largely still tribal can easily be changed over into a different world view where the needs and talents of the world's people are more easily interchanged. Sort of a global nation with various states. I'm for it. We'll deal with the assholes as they rise up. The monied may become more empowered, yes, but so will we. It's a shift. And it could be a good one. One of the biggest assets may well be the end of war. You don't go to 'war' with your brother whose working habits and lifestyles are held in the common view as acceptable.
Good work, wikileaks. Keep em coming.
MFrohike
(1,980 posts)The article isn't about a global government, it's about neutering the ability of national governments to regulate finance. Also, even if it were about a global government, no empire has ever ended war. Wars simply get renamed "uprisings" or "rebellions."
wildbilln864
(13,382 posts)wildbilln864
(13,382 posts)""The TransPacific Partnership is labelled as a "free trade" magic elixir that will cure all ills - Jobs! Prosperity! World Peace! - but in fact it's a toxic brew that weakens the American body politic and the Constitution. And when you look at how it came about you see that those are design features, not bugs.
The historical record is clear: what are misleadingly called "free trade agreements" were never really about trade. Their goal is to render independent nation states null and void, and hand power over to unaccountable, transnational corporatist authorities."