Two days to stop TPP -- A vast, global corporate power grab
12 Sep 2012, 8:09 pm
From the Avaaz.org newsletter:
Details are leaking of a top-secret, global corporate power grab of breathtaking scope -- attacking everything from a free Internet to health and environmental regulations, and we have just 4 days to stop it.
Big business has a new plan to fatten their pockets: a giant global pact, with an international tribunal to enforce it, that is kept top secret for years (even from our lawmakers!) and then brought down like a Death Star on our democracies. Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Walmart and almost 600 other corporate lobbyists are all in on the draft -- including limits on smoking laws, affordable medicines and free speech on the Net.
The latest round of negotiations ends in just 4 days -- but outcries in each of our countries could shake the confidence of negotiators and scuttle the talks forever. Let's get to a million against the global corporate takeover. Sign below and forward widely. Avaaz will project our petition counter on the walls of the conference so negotiators can see the opposition to their plan exploding in real time:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corpor ... cb&v=17850
The deal, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is written to protect investors from government regulation, even if that regulation is passed in the public interest. Leaked versions suggest the TPP would undermine protections for air and water safety and reintroduce measures from the US Internet freedom attack as well as steamrolling efforts to produce generic affordable medicines. Worse still, lawmakers who fail to conform to the TPP’s rules face sanctions in an international tribunal -- a place where corporations can sue us for deals previous governments signed in secret!
Negotiators say this is just a trade agreement, written to facilitate investment and profit for all. But the leaked draft imposes so many limits on citizen protections, it's clear this "trade" agreement is skewed to put corporate profit above people's needs -- that's not surprising since it's been drafted in secret with almost 600 corporate lobbyists.
But there is hope: Australia is bucking against the international tribunal system, and New Zealand is objecting to the takeover of its medicine-pricing protections that keep drugs affordable. Massive public opposition, casting doubt over each country's ability to sell TPP at home, could derail the talks for good. Sign the petition now, and forward widely -- the delegates and lobbyists are watching the wave of opposition grow in real time:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corpor ... cb&v=17850
US Senator, Elizabeth Warren in a recent speech said: “Corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters, because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people." Let’s reach one million to stop the corporate takeover of our governments.
With hope,
Iain, Pedro, Laura, Ari, Emma, Lisa, Luca, Ricken and the whole Avaaz team
PS - Avaaz has launched Community Petitions, an exciting new platform where it's quick and easy to create a campaign on any issue you care strongly about. Start your own by clicking here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_ ... ?do.ps.tpp
MORE INFORMATION
The Nation: "NAFTA on Steroids"
http://www.thenation.com/article/168627/nafta-steroids
The Guardian: "The Pacific free trade deal that's anything but free"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... trade-deal
Huffington Post: "Leak Cracks Open Trans-Pacific Partnership Scandal"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletc ... 94675.html
Reuters: "Lawmakers press for open Trans-Pacific trade talks"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/ ... MK20120627
TechDirt: "Hollywood Gets To Party With TPP Negotiators; Public Interest Groups Get Thrown Out Of Hotel"
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201201 ... otel.shtml
Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Background and analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement"
https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
EDIT: Updated the title of the thread
Last edited by Beauty_pact on 14 Sep 2012, 1:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
12 Sep 2012, 9:47 pm
There seems to be an avalanche of alarmingly bad news that points towards the enslavement of millions of people. It looks like people will need to die in large numbers to free themselves from this tyranny and yes, these forces enslaving people will kill in large numbers to protect their power grab.
12 Sep 2012, 11:15 pm
Take what those hypocrites are trying to pull off in Greece... in a bid to deflect from the depredations of the ruling class and global elite, the right wing government is taking to blaming immigrants. The left parties refused to play along and they took a hit in the polls, helping shore up the awful government while the ultra-right Golden Dawn is boosted. These hypocrites attack nativist nationalist type forces that take things out on immigrants except for when it's convenient for them, deflecting blame away from powerful forces and towards powerless people many of whom are fleeing other elite depredations elsewhere in the world. Awful. If people are killed in anti-immigrant violence it's just wonderful as far as they're concerned and they're already killing many thousands with their poisonous so-called medicine economic policies. They're uniformly evil. They're banning all civil rights to dissent all over the West. They're clearly at war with their populations.
14 Sep 2012, 2:37 pm
www.enewspf.com/latest-news/latest-nati ... talks.html
Lansdowne, VA --(ENEWSPF)--Septemer 14, 2012. Actress Q’orianka Kilcher was arrested yesterday evening at an upscale golf resort in Virginia after helping to deliverer over 350,000 protest signatures to an official with the US Trade Representatives negotiating the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement. The actress, producer and activist was filming an interaction between other activists and police officers outside the hotel where the meetings are taking place when she was suddenly handcuffed and arrested for trespassing. In a choppy video recorded on her cell phone, an officer can be heard saying “are you filming this? That’s it! You’re trespassing!” at which point the clip ends abruptly as she is arrested.
Ms Kilcher’s arrest occurred immediately after she joined with representatives of Rainforest Action Network and Avaaz.org in a scheduled meeting to deliver over 350,000 petition signatures opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership and calling for transparency for these high stakes negotiaions.
In a statement prior to her arrest, Q’orianka Kilcher stated, “The Trans Pacific Partnership would be devastating for people around the world and it is being negotiated in complete secrecy to hide the content, because these agreements would never see the light of day if US citizens and congress were allowed to see what is being proposed in our names. While hundreds of corporate advisors have access to the information contained within these documents, the American public, the media and even members of congress do not.
“This sort of secrecy is highly undemocratic and is a complete disregard of all the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution to avoid exactly this sort of thing.”
Ms. Kilcher’s arrest follows a week of rallies, protests and civil disobedience opposing the high stakes Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations taking place this week. A rapidly growing movement is organizing to oppose the unprecedented lack of transparency surrounding theObama Administration’s handling of the TPP discussions. While 600 corporate lobbyists have been allowed access to and input on the draft texts from thebeginning of negotiations three years ago, the public and even high rankingmembers of US Congress have not been allowed to see what is being proposed on their behalf.
Draft texts of the proposal have appeared on Wikileaks and the website of Citizen’s Trade Campaign.
“Labor leaders, environmentalists, healthcare advocates and internet privacy proponents are seriously concerned that while the TPP is referred to as a 'trade agreement,’ in actuality it reads like a wish list of transnational corporations to implement a binding system of global corporate governance.” Said Laurel Sutherlin of Rainforest Action Network. “Of the 26 chapters under negotiation, only a few have to do directly with trade. The other chapters enshrine new rights and privileges for major corporations while weakening the power of nation states to oppose them. The TPP essentially proposes to establish a parallel system of justice where companies can sue countries in a tribunal of judges composed of unaccountable international trade lawyers with little to no process for appeal.”
/ ... /
14 Sep 2012, 6:50 pm
ruveyn
I take that as sarcasm - am I right with that assumption...?
I am happy for you, that you have such trust for the "authorities".... it must make every day so much easier for you.
The "authorities" are the last people I trust. I also have a low regard for conspiracy theories.
ruveyn
14 Sep 2012, 8:55 pm
Oh, come on, these kind of "trade deals" have been passed endlessly for over twenty years! It's the same old story. This "conspiracy theory" is out in plain view if people look closely enough but they don't because the mainstream media doesn't want to cover it with any kind of adequacy because they are owned by the people that are promoting these "trade deals" which are essentially wish lists for themselves! Also, many people are resigned to the idea that these elites are untouchable, nearly god-like in power and that complaining about their depredations will cause Wrath to be rained down upon them! There's a sense that there's nothing that can be done, these people are too powerful, they own the governments and no matter what they vote for, they're stuck with more of these "trade deals", more giveaways to these elites and an approaching serfdom for themselves. The elite are becoming worse and worse, less and less loyal to their own countries and people, are becoming really enemies of all humankind.
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