RIP TPP?

June 13, 2015

By William K. Black
Quito: June 13, 2015

My answer to the question I pose in my title is “no.” The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is far from dead and can only be defeated by heroic efforts by a broad coalition of Americans dedicated to the interests of our Nation and its people and willing to pay the price to oppose the triumph of corporate interests. The focus of this column, however, is on the New York Times’ coverage of Friday’s vote on a key component of President Obama and the Republican leadership’s efforts to make the TPP law. That focus requires some tangential discussion of the substantive arguments for and against TPP but I will minimize that discussion because I have explained previously in greater detail why I oppose the TPP and urge Americans to make our efforts to defeat it one of our highest priorities.

The reasons to defeat TPP have nothing to do with political party. The NYT, however, treated Friday’s House vote against TPP almost entirely in partisan political terms. Indeed, the paper’s coverage focused almost exclusively on Democrats and its perspective was almost entirely that of President Obama’s framing of the issues. The NYT ignored the majority bipartisan opposition to TPP based on the harm it would cause to our people and sovereignty, the obscene manner in which it was drafted in secret by corporate interests, and the indefensible manner in which it presented to Congress without any meaningful opportunity to (a) know the deal terms, (b) know which corporate interests had secretly drafted the terms for their personal benefit, or (c) vote down even the worst examples of corporate abuses.

Instead, the NYT “analysis” (initially) entitled its column: “Washington Dysfunction, With a Twist: Democrats Desert Their President.” That is a remarkable title, particularly for a supposed news story rather than an op ed. The NYT writers’ advocacy for TPP is so extreme that they redefined “democracy” as “dysfunction.” A more apt “twist” in their title would have been: “Democrats Refuse Obama’s Attempt to ‘Seduce’ them to Desert their Principles and Constituents.”

in full: http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2015/06/rip-tpp.html