The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic (from last year)
This piece first appeared at Web of Debt.
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.
Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution
A republican form of government is one in which power resides in elected officials representing the citizens, and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. In The Federalist Papers, James Madison defined a republic as a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people . . . .
On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers.
The secretive TPP is an agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries that affects 40% of global markets. Fast-track authority could now go to the full Senate for a vote as early as next week. Fast-track means Congress will be prohibited from amending the trade deal, which will be put to a simple up or down majority vote. Negotiating the TPP in secret and fast-tracking it through Congress is considered necessary to secure its passage, since if the public had time to review its onerous provisions, opposition would mount and defeat it.
more: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_trans-pacific_partnership_and_the_death_of_the_republic_20150426
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)That's why the US does not exist today.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)And they were written by the Corporations (well, and Hillary helped, if you can call it that)
Baobab
(4,667 posts)They are afraid governments might not make the "hard choices" to let people starve or expel the poor rather than preserve corporate hegemony.
Its a matter of survival for them. Were it not for the GATS, millions of people would not have died and the US might have fixed its health care system 20 years ago.