Is Public Debate of Trade Agreements Against the Public Interest? 219
onproton writes The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), currently being negotiated in secret, has been subject to numerous draft leaks that indicate these talks are potentially harmful to everything from public health to internet freedom. So why isn't the public involved, and why are the terms of the agreement being debated behind closed doors? According to New Zealand's current Trade Minister, Tim Groser, full disclosure of what is being discussed would likely lead to "public debate on an ill-informed basis before the deal has been done." Leaving one to question how revealing the full context and scope of the agreement talks would lead to an increase in misinformation rather than clarity.
Misleading summary (Score:5, Funny)
There is a public debate. Every citizen of the Campaign-funding Corporations of America has the ability to vote, through their elected Lobbyists.
Oh, wait... now I see. Whoever submitted the story was referring to the form of government that the U.S. had around 1800.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Id love to see a constitutional convention in my lifetime and a few new amendments. Term limits for congress, public debate on all bills (posted in full for public consumption for at least 180 days before a vote) and no secret treaties
br> there is more, but that would be a good start
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It won't happen that way. They will gut the bill of rights, that's all.
And term limits don't work, not unless you can put one on the institutions the politicians represent. Take a trip to Mexico to see what good term limits have done them. The same ruling institutional party has been running the show for almost 80 years now. Our republican/democrat charade has been going on for 150. Until the voter develops the strength to resist the propaganda and simply tune out big money campaigns there is no hope.
The id
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Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep in mind that every state has strict term limits. Approximately 0 of them are significantly better run the the Feds. The problem with our democracy isn't the faces we're sending to Washington. It's the people who vote for those faces. And yes, I just said that most of the problems the American people have with American democracy are the fault of the American people.
We don't agree on jack-squat. Paul Ryan strongly believes that one of the biggest problems facing the nation today is that it is over-taxed, particularly on the wealthy. If you cut their taxes and allow them to create jobs everyone will be better off. Barack Obama believes the opposite. Therefore for them to agree on a budget (which includes taxes), they basically have to base it entirely on the last year's budget (aka: the one everyone hates), because otherwise one of them would be admitting defeat.
And the whole goddamn time they have snipe at each-other in a ridiculous attempt to gain some trivial advantage in negotiations our grandchildren will not give a fuck about. Seriously. A couple years back Bush's tax cuts expired, and there was a massive government shutdown because Obama wanted them to expire for like 99.8% of Americans, but for taxes to go up on the others; but Paul Ryan wanted to keep them around for every-damn-body. As a Democrat I loved that Obama stood up for his principles, because they are my principles, but even I am objective enough to acknowledge it was a fucking stupid fight to have.
The only ways to reduce the BS would be mass-murder of roughly 10 million of the voters from one side or the other, or centralize power more so that the guy who came in second didn't have veto-power over public policy.
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Except, of course, for the the inconvinient truth that gun violence has been on a decline for decades.
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Blaming lead for all of it is extremely misleading. The fact is that the rate of violent acts has been going down all over the world significantly over the last millennium.
For example, it used to be that every year one European country was declaring war on another one, and each time these wars lasted 10 to 30 years, sometimes 60 to 100 years. Nowadays wars are rarely declared, and it's extremely rare that they'll last 10 years.
Also consider that if you lived in Boston during some time of the 1500's, you wer
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The only people who think there is wiggle room in the constitution, and the 2nd specifically are agenda driven people, people who want to disarm america so that
Bullshit ... (Score:2, Flamebait)
I was scanning for this argument because I am prepared to set your ass straight on some points:
Your interpretation that the 2nd amendment was intended, in part, to help citizens defend itself against the government is whack.
For one, you are supporting the folks who are of the opinion that:
1.) the government (whether police officer or federal agent, soldier or sailor [who have died protecting your gun rights]) have to be killed ...
2.) to the point that something must be done [nbcnews.com], so they get their guns and then
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If you read the Founding Father's thoughts on guns outside of the Constitution, you might have a clearer picture of the need for an armed citizenry.
You are saying this to a historian, Bubba. I know why you didn't bother to provide examples by way of citation.
If you read the Founding Father's thoughts on guns outside of the Constitution ...
I have read that a hell of a lot more than you have and it's totally irrelevant. The Constitution of the United States is not superseded or amended by the thoughts of the Founding Fathers outside of the Constitution.
By way of reference, I suggest you review the Founding Fathers' thoughts on slavery and women's right to vote and stuff.
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I do know shit about history. In my extensive readings, I realized that the definition of, "Founding Fathers," as suggested by the plural form, was not comprised solely of Thomas Jefferson.
However, read and weep:
While considering slavery a moral travesty, hideous evil, and clearly at odds with his values of the American Revolution and republican virtue, Jefferson owned several hundred slaves at his home at Monticello and surrounding agricultural farms and businesses. In much of his correspondence to friends and business associates, Jefferson laments the immoral institution of slavery and yet describes how it must continue. [umbc.edu]
Bold is mine.
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the reason it "must continue" is for the greater good of the nation at the time. you should know that compromise was needed to keep the country from falling apart . Jefferson’s belief in the necessity of ending slavery never changed. From the mid-1770s until his death, he advocated the same plan of gradual emancipation. First, the transatlantic slave trade would be abolished. Second, slaveowners would “improve” s
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That sounds a lot like this:
While considering slavery a moral travesty, hideous evil, and clearly at odds with his values of the American Revolution and republican virtue, Jefferson owned several hundred slaves at his home at Monticello and surrounding agricultural farms and businesses. In much of his correspondence to friends and business associates, Jefferson laments the immoral institution of slavery and yet describes how it must continue.
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I think this is the real point and real problem. The founding fathers were creating a consortium of states with a minimal federal government and were trying to protect the freedoms they felt were important. I am lucky to have benefited from a society built on them, but our people now would never agree with our founding fathers' beliefs.
That's been tested. Vietnam to Iraq (Score:3)
> The US government has enjoyed exponential growth in weaponry sophistication what with smart bombs, night vision, drones, attack ships, fighter jets, napalm, and a holy host of others
Sophisticated US aircraft, navy ships, etc fought vs small arms many times, from Vietnam to Iraq. The results have been fairly consistent - missiles cannot control the local population. An armed populace beats a superpower military every time, from USSR-Afghanistan to US-Iraq. That's because the locals don't need to de
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"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty . . . And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
just admit you dont have a fucking clue what you are talking about. no one is advocating killing anyone. its a LAST RESORT one we hope to never have to use, but if we dont have the right to do so an no matter how many times you say we dont, you are wrong, Jefferson is right
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Contradictory much?
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Hmmm... makes me wonder why Jefferson didn't join the Whiskey Rebellion, to see if he meant what he said. 16 years too soon, perhaps?
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as someone who claims to be a historian, I suggest you do a little more research into Jefferson and the other founding fathers because you clearly dont know what you are talking about
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Contradictory much?
I don't talk about it much. I mostly author. Not lost upon me is your reluctance to cite.
Re: Misleading summary (Score:2)
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Which states have term limits? 15 out of 50 is not every state. out of those 15 most are what are termed red states.
None before the year 1996. which means they have had less than 2 full cycles of people through. That is less than ideal testing.
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How many states have no term limits for Governor?
Regardless this is politics, not some scientific experiment. If you have a brilliant plan to fix everything that doesn't work in it's 18th year of operation you are a total failure, and the people should fire you and abolish your solution.
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So you're criticizing a guy who did not mention either the Nazis or the Communists, by saying he invoked Godwin's law? After you very specifically said "just like the Nazis" in response to one of his arguments? An argument which you intentionally misinterpreted?
Thanks for proving my point.
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In California the appear to have made things worse. This isn't certain, because lots of other things were happening at the same time, but they sure haven't made things better.
OTOH, time has clearly demonstrated that no small group of people is capable of policing their predatory behavior upon the non-members of the group. Or at least all attempts to date have been unsuccessful. Some of the attempts have lasted for decades before failure, and their modes of failure have lead me to develop a hypothesis (whi
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The representatives most influenced by money were those in the middle. In 2006, 2008 and 2010 the voters decimated the ranks of politicians who were influenced by big money and replaced them with much more idealogical politicians. In 2014 we are likely to see yet another round of pruning in the Senate. You can like or hate the result but what you are asking for is happening.
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No I certainly am. But let's not conflate:
a) Politician X has no opinion on Y. Donor Z influences him on Y by donating
with
b) Politician X has a strong opinion on Y. Donor Z agrees with him on Y and donates.
That's very very different. We've gotten rid of (a) but replacing it with (b).
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
180 days before the vote? You do realize that there are only 730.5 days in a typical Congressional term? Since the last 200 or so of those days are wasted in Electoral BS, you've just forced Congress to get two years of policy making done in less then a year. Which means the President gets to do whatever he wants.
Like damn near everyone who wants to reduce the power of lobbyists, you have no fucking clue what makes them powerful. Lobbyists are not powerful because of Secret Plans. Their political donations help, but if just having a lot of money to donate guaranteed success we would have a second privately-owned span over the Detroit River rather then the DRIC project. They are powerful because they have the resources to participate in every single debate Congress ever has in a very meaningful way. They can send a dude to every Subcommittee meeting and have a very high-level discussion over whether obscure proposal X would hurt them. The People, as a body, have extremely limited bandwidth; and most of the time a lot of it is taken up by things that Congress has no control over.
What would actually happen in your system is Congress would post dozens of half-baked ideas in January, the people would bitch to high heaven about precisely three of them, and lobbyists would make a killing re-writing the rest.
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what happened to the 10th amendment??
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If we were Canada and the Head of Government basically ruled by decree, then there would be very little governing to be done by Congress. But we're not Canada.
In the US everything, from disaster areas, to the budget, to investigating how the President spends money, goes through an independent Congress. It all gets a special bill. Since (again, unlike Canada) all the Congressman have a chance to influence the bill it takes forever, and is a huge pain in the ass.
As for the 10th Amendment, it's not an Amendmen
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The problem with a not-in-DC-Congress is that it would be too close to the people.
In theory everyone supports things like "reasonable tax reform," proposals to increase social security's solvency, cutting the debt, etc. In practice roughly 48% of the people who show up in Presidential years want to do these things with purely-market-based reforms like tax cuts. The other 51% figure you could reform taxes in a way that jacked up revenue, cut the deficit, and save Social Security; and that purely-market-based
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This is Inverted Totalitarianism (Score:5, Interesting)
Hearing this, I cannot help but thinking that our political systems reflect something called Inverted Totalitarianism [wikipedia.org].
Inverted totalitarianism is a term coined by political philosopher Sheldon Wolin in 2003 to describe the emerging form of government of the United States. Wolin believes that the United States is increasingly turning into an illiberal democracy, and uses the term "inverted totalitarianism" to illustrate similarities and differences between the United States governmental system and totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and the nationalist Spain.
Wolin holds that the United States has been increasingly adopting totalitarian tendencies as a result of transformations undergone during the military mobilization required to fight the Axis powers in the 1940s, and the subsequent campaign to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War:[2]
He refers to the U.S. using the proper noun "Superpower", to emphasize the current position of the United States as the only global superpower.
While the versions of totalitarianism represented by Nazism and Fascism consolidated power by suppressing liberal political practices that had sunk only shallow cultural roots, Superpower represents a drive towards totality that draws from the setting where liberalism and democracy have been established for more than two centuries. It is Nazism turned upside-down, “inverted totalitarianism.” While it is a system that aspires to totality, it is driven by an ideology of the cost-effective rather than of a “master race” (Herrenvolk), by the material rather than the “ideal.”[6]
According to Wolin, there are three main ways in which inverted totalitarianism is the inverted form of classical totalitarianism.
- Whereas in Nazi Germany the state dominated economic actors, in inverted totalitarianism, corporations through political contributions and lobbying, dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than corrupt.[7]
- While the Nazi regime aimed at the constant political mobilization of the population, with its Nuremberg rallies, Hitler Youth, and so on, inverted totalitarianism aims for the mass of the population to be in a persistent state of political apathy. The only type of political activity expected or desired from the citizenry is voting. Low electoral turnouts are favorably received as an indication that the bulk of the population has given up hope that the government will ever help them.[8]
- While the Nazis openly mocked democracy, the United States maintains the conceit that it is the model of democracy for the whole world.[9] Wolin writes:
Inverted totalitarianism reverses things. It is all politics all of the time but a politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash.[10]
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Term limits for congress
Effective government demands continuity, a willingness to compromise. The ability to think and plan long-term. That is the real contribution to political theory of small-C conservatism.
Term limits give power to the lobbyist, the bureaucrat and the judge ---
at the highest level, men and women whose reputation, experience, influence and resources dwarf the Congressional fruit-flies who are here today and gone tomorrow.
no secret treaties
It's a lovely ideal, older than dirt. But no one has ever been able to make it work.
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Term limits are massively stupid, and result in decision making being totally handed over to lobbyists. If you think it's too hard to vote people out, support the reform of apportionment.
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'Its just another example of "we have to pass it before we can find out whats in it"'.
And that's just the Congress...
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Don't laugh. The Global Corporate Congress [wikia.com] is exactly who is getting to vote here.
sigh I miss America...
Re: Misleading summary (Score:5, Interesting)
After 12 attempts in 25 years, Congress finally repeals Glass-Steagall, rewarding financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts. Supporters hail the change as the long-overdue demise of a Depression-era relic.
On Oct. 21, with the House-Senate conference committee deadlocked after marathon negotiations, the main sticking point is partisan bickering over the bill's effect on the Community Reinvestment Act, which sets rules for lending to poor communities. Sandy Weill calls President Clinton in the evening to try to break the deadlock after Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, warned Citigroup lobbyist Roger Levy that Weill has to get White House moving on the bill or he would shut down the House-Senate conference. Serious negotiations resume, and a deal is announced at 2:45 a.m. on Oct. 22. Whether Weill made any difference in precipitating a deal is unclear.
On Oct. 22, Weill and John Reed issue a statement congratulating Congress and President Clinton, including 19 administration officials and lawmakers by name. The House and Senate approve a final version of the bill on Nov. 4, and Clinton signs it into law later that month.
Just days after the administration (including the Treasury Department) agrees to support the repeal, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the former co-chairman of a major Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs, raises eyebrows by accepting a top job at Citigroup as Weill's chief lieutenant. The previous year, Weill had called Secretary Rubin to give him advance notice of the upcoming merger announcement. When Weill told Rubin he had some important news, the secretary reportedly quipped, "You're buying the government?"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/... [pbs.org]
Pffft... (Score:2, Informative)
... the law is so corrupted, they are going to strengthen IP laws (aka screw the public). The public domain has already been stolen.
https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2014/pre-1976
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yeah ... Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:yeah ... Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
He might as well have said that as a form of government, dictatorship is superior to democracy.
I think he did.
Re:yeah ... Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
More than that-- if you read between the lines:
For democracy to work, the public at large must be well educated, so that they can make sound, well informed votes in the governance process.
By making a public statement of this nature, the rep from NZ has basically stated, (implicitly), that his citizenry is not educated enough to participate in a democratic government. He is basically saying that education in NZ is a failure, and that the citizenry cant be trusted to make sound judgments.
If that same explanation is then carried by other political figures in other countries, it means the reps from those other countries have the same exact problems.
Rather than reform education to actually fix the problem, they instead have elected to usurp government, and destroy the foundational core of the democratic process itself.
Educating the public so that they can make sound and valid judgments and criticisms takes too long and is too hard for these supposedly skilled and benevolent representatives to ensure, apparently.
Everything about this statement indicates that the rep in question has no business in office, as he is not representing his citizenry, (brazenly so in fact), and is NOT acting in their best interests, by working behind their backs in secret, instead of improving conditions and overall base education to a level where they can then participate publicly.
For the people of NZ, your representative basically just said you are too fucking stupid to be trusted with governing yourselves. He has insulted you to your faces. Do something about him.
Re:yeah ... Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:yeah ... Are You Kidding? (Score:4, Informative)
For the people of NZ, your representative basically just said you are too fucking stupid to be trusted with governing yourselves. He has insulted you to your faces. Do something about him.
Some of us recently tried and failed. 1/3 of us didn't even bother to vote, and the rest voted for Tim Groser and his ilk.
As a NZer myself I'm afraid I have to agree.. most of us are too stupid, or too apathetic to govern ourselves. As the poster below pointed out - the most popular programmes here are so the called reality shows, that have no basis in reality and designed to keep the masses dumbed down to the level of a 7yr old
Re:yeah ... Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, in a democracy, the people might vote based on their best interests rather than your ideological goals. Also, they're all stupid sheeple anyway, so why should they get to veto your brillant plans?
Communism fell due to setting the goals and secular religion of a few elites above the well-being of the masses. Now capitalism is about to fall due to acquiring a monopoly and abusing the shit out of it. History loves irony, it seems.
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In our American two party system, the two parties are so close together in political stance that there is no real choice. And how will voting for a specific party cause the secret negotiations to end? Do we think either party is against this? So, I'm not sure what voting has to do with anything. It's more about how the system is broken.
Capitalism isn't a political system, it's an economic system, and it's not going to fail. It will always work because it's goal is for the people participating to make mo
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Remember, the governments know whats best for you.
Make it separate (Score:3)
make separate agreements about internet freedom and trade agreements, and let public debate happen about each of them. And find another mechanism than ISDS that retains freedom of the state to release regulations.
And when you claim people to be ill-informed, either inform them yourself, or explain why you think they are ill-informed. This is the way a democracy works. In representative democracies, lots of un-important stuff may not come to the public, this is not bad, but important stuff still should to be debated by a large number of people.
Of course not. (Score:4, Interesting)
Using treaties and agreements negotiated in secrecy with other nations to do an end-run around the democratic process is *obviously* a subversion of everything a civilized country *should* stand for. Public debate is not actually a bad thing - but because of things like these the public interest is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
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Re:Of course not. (Score:5, Insightful)
We have to pass it to find out what's in it! (Score:3, Insightful)
According to New Zealand's current Trade Minister, Tim Groser, full disclosure of what is being discussed would likely lead to "public debate on an ill-informed basis before the deal has been done."
"We have to pass it to find out what's in it!" - Nancy Pelosi
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According to New Zealand's current Trade Minister, Tim Groser, full disclosure of what is being discussed would likely lead to "public debate on an ill-informed basis before the deal has been done."
"We have to pass it to find out what's in it!" - Nancy Pelosi
Of course, in context, what that quote meant was that she couldn't provide the final text of the Affordable Care Act before the scores of amendments had been voted on, because she couldn't somehow "know" exactly which ones would pass.
I suspect the same sort of thing would happen if all treaty negotiation had to happen in public. Inevitably diplomacy involves compromises. In a fully transparent process, at the first signs that a politician might be considering making a concession on the particular concern of
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"Simple" enough when you're talking about what is clearly unrelated legislation, but the problem then becomes where to draw the line between "related" (example: how to fund whatever program you're trying to pass) and "unrelated", and who has the power to draw that line.
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Politicians aside, any complex issue is ripe for manipulation by media entities, as the average individual usually cannot be expected to fully comprehend a complex piece of legislation or treaty.
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Libertarian fuckwittery. Because having single payer health care (which provides far better care for a far lesser cost) is the same thing as the NSA spying on every person on the planet.
There is some place for secrecy (Score:5, Informative)
There is some place for secrecy in negotiation. If our negotiators are trying to get the best deal for us, they don't want to reveal what concessions they are willing to make until they have a sense of the concessions other parties are willing to make.
The problem is that, at least in the US, the trade negotiating agency has its priorities set by a limited number of industry advisory groups, and these groups are not representative of US interests. The composition of the groups is about 20 years behind the times, so as a result you have a trade agency pushing for copyright restrictions without thinking about how they will affect the technology industry.
The trade agency also expends a disproportionate amount of bargaining capital on intellectual property, thus reducing what it is able to accomplish in other areas, such as labor and environmental standards.
Finally, the trade agency writes its own interpretation of US law into free trade agreements. It's usually pretty close to what US law actually says, but sometimes it misinterprets it, or US law changes and the FTA text ends up saying something completely different [publicknowledge.org].
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Beides, while at least telling your subjects what you are negotiating about, would not necessarily require revealinh all your cards, au contraire, public discourse may give you other leverage, or even more opportunities for bargaining.
I don't think there's downside in open trade negotaitions. Not open trade. Or
Re:There is some place for secrecy (Score:5, Insightful)
> Most of the nogotiations are, or should not be, a game, where you try to achieve advantage over the other "partners", but try an agreement that benefits boths sides, or all, sides of the agreement.
Oh, dear. _All_ negotiations are games. Your goals, as an honest negotiator, should include your personal and group benefits, and do not have to include _hurting_ other people in the process. But the refusal to acknowledge that the game exists is much like "I refuse to play office politics." The people who make such claims are generally just very bad at it, and thus want everyone else to be equally hampered, or a very few of them are very subtle and want to be able to play their best game while their potential competitors think the game is not in progress.
If you worked for or with me, I'd be delighted to walk you through some of the typical salary negotiation games just so you're aware that they exist and in what ways they're inevitable. It helps reduce the conflicts and backbiting and tragic that occur when the games are kept entirely secret and the negotiations occur without the knowledge of other interested or directly affected parties.
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> On the other hand, free trade is a mutually beneficial arrangement
Compared to what? Monopolyy power, for example, is enormously more beneficial to one side than the other. Just as free speech can have notable, _specific_ benefits and general benefits for a society as a whole, control of trade and control of speech have tremendous power and benefit to the parties who have the control.
I'm also afraid that there also companies, specifically, from being ready and willing to "stab people in the eyeball". Th
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Heavily restricted trade such as protection, obviously. That's what makes free trade 'free.'
Yes, but it is not uncommon for a monopoly to actually be more profitable when it ceases to be a monopoly. The lack of efficiency is so draining that even the abuser of said position is often better off without it.
Yes, those are the same kinds of gro
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> None of the negotiating parties are willing to reveal up front the maximum concessions
There are 2 notable problems with revealing up front.the maximum concessions.
1) None of them know in detail. They have to negotiate with powerful people whose ability, or willingness, may change from moment to change or may alter between the start of negotiations and the end of negotiations.
2) Giving the information up front would rob extensive, entrenched bureaucracy with centuries or even millennia of history of the
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Betteridge (Score:2)
Seriously, what could be *more* in the public interest than debate about an issue where our politicians have just been caught intentionally if not maliciously lying about?
Warning (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This is why it’s “secret”.
The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations—like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association of America—are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement. [...] More than two months after receiving the proper security credentials, my staff is still barred from viewing the details of the proposals that USTR is advancing. We hear that the process by which TPP is being negotiated has been a model of transparency. I disagree with that statement.[94]
Corporations don’t want the hassle of people complaining and/or some members of congress doing something about it.
That tells you right there it’s a bad thing.
Here’s something else.
they are concerned that the TPP focuses on protecting intellectual property to the detriment of efforts to provide access to affordable medicine in the developing world, particularly Vietnam, going against the foreign policy goals of the Obama administration and previous administrations.[79]
Read the entire wiki, then read this article to see exactly what might happen to who gets to set foreign policy.
Then. read this.
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol... [theatlantic.com]
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Since Congress has zilch to do with Treaties till it comes ratification time (negotiating Treaties is an Executive Branch thing), it matters not at all that Congress is being kept in the dark about them.
Now, once the Treaty is presented to Congress for ratification, they're in control - the President can't legally enforce a Treaty till it's been ratified, and ratification is entirely in the hands of the Senate.
No
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As facile as stating a president has nothing to do with legislation until it arrives on his desk for a signature.
Inform us then (Score:5, Insightful)
"public debate on an ill-informed basis before the deal has been done."
It's a politician's job to inform us. If we are ill-informed they only have themselves to blame. Once the deal is complete it is extremely hard to impossible for the public to have any input because it then becomes a case of take it all or leave it all and there is always something good in there. This then allows some governments to use these treaties to ram extremely unpopular laws through which they can't get passed using the democratic process and, at the same time, foist them off on other nations whose people don't want them either.
Secret negotiations only work when you trust the people negotiating on your behalf to do so in your best interest. Let's face it, regardless of whichever country you are in, do you really trust your politicians to do that for you in this day and age?
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That sounds like a tautology.
Once a politician has handled the truth, it is indistinguishable from a lie.
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likely vs guaranteed (Score:3, Interesting)
damn thing is written to preclude debate (Score:2)
probably be sent to the Senate as 1500 blank pages with a cover, "pass it or no selfies with (whoever the incumbent) President." total crap. first, publish it. then, we can talk. until then, one voice in unison, "HELL NO!"
Backroom deals (Score:2)
According to New Zealand's current Trade Minister, Tim Groser, full disclosure of what is being discussed would likely lead to "public debate on an ill-informed basis before the deal has been done.
So instead we get backroom deals that favor narrow interests over the public interest.
There is a nugget of truth in his argument in that sometimes having every aspect of a deal hammered out in public results in a worse outcome. This is well understood by professional negotiators. Sometimes a public debate forces politicians to take a position earlier than they would otherwise not take based on early proposals even though these early proposals will never make it into the finished agreement. Once they say
Simply Protecting the Proletariat (Score:2)
According to New Zealand's current Trade Minister, Tim Groser, full disclosure of what is being discussed would likely lead to "public debate on an ill-informed basis before the deal has been done."
I do not understand the lack of clarity in his speech. He could simply have said, "The proletariat are too ignorant for their own good, and must be protected from their stupidity by the aristocracy, like dogs or goats."
The short answer is: NO! (Score:2)
The short answer is: NO!
End of discussion!
Why? They don't negotiate for us.. That's why. (Score:4, Insightful)
The TPP isn't for American Citizens. It's for companies that are buying american politicians. That's why. It's very obvious..
- Kevin.
Free speech but not trade (Score:2)
Re:Free speech but not trade (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming you are American or from another developed country Free Trade probably isn't the goal. Free Trade will mostly benefit big corporations who will make more money by producing items in whatever country who's employees will work for the least. And those 3rd World Countries will benefit big time. Effectively wages and standard of living gets averaged out. Rich North Americans and Europeans get poorer as our jobs move out of our countries, and our money moves out of our economies.. Poor Africans and Asians get richer.
-Kevin
A rising tide (Score:2)
our money moves out of our economies
And then back into our economies when no longer "poor Africans and Asians" seek to purchase our goods and services. Mercantilism's singular focus on trade balance and Hoarding Teh Money has long since been discredited [wikipedia.org] in favor of rising tide [wikipedia.org] and comparative advantage [wikipedia.org] theory.
Bad Samaritans (Score:5, Interesting)
And here is where freedom ends (Score:5, Interesting)
Contrary to Betteridge's law [slashdot.org], the answer here is Yes
Despite all of America's faults our freedom of speech and self correcting form of democracy had always made me proud to be and American. These days however we seem to teeter on the edge of Fascism in order to preserve the interests of the top 1%.
The freedom of the internet and the cultural clash with ideologies like radical Islam seem to have created a perfect storm to motivate those at the top to grab what they can now and lock down everything to keep it for themselves in perpetuity.
Automation will increasingly make goods cheaper. Intellectual property is essentially free to distribute once created. Since there will be less profits in making goods going forward, the way to more riches is to lock up IP and make it artificially expensive. The ultimate cash-cow.
The top 1% decry the inheritance tax (death tax in rich parlance). By all measures class mobility in America is declining – lowering taxes for the rich is increasingly a scam to produce a new nobility, not a way to spur more hiring. It is not a coincidence I think that as tax rates for the rich have declined that the rich are pulling away year after year from the middle class. The advantages the rich have had over the last few decades never seem to trickle down to the middle class, so why always the argument the rich are needed to create jobs? The more we give the less we get.
Re: (Score:2)
so why always the argument the rich are needed to create jobs?
This question reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. Creating goods and services requires both labor and "the means of production". Wherever there are jobs, there is ownership of the means of production, and however concentrated or distributed that ownership may be, you can't have jobs without capital.
People get twisted up in thinking of capital as "the right to the profits", but the gross profits of public corporations are already split better than 80% labor, 20% capital. What's important
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When an inheritor has to sell the rest of the his or hers property to pay the tax, and be unable to pay it on time even after trying to sell the inherited property the second after signing the papers on it and having to default, that's not exactly the upward mobility as American dream, or more generally, the dream of industrial revolution had in mind.
Let the inheritor move up by their own efforts, not start out up courtesy of the efforts of their parents/parents siblings/etc..
Because ... (Score:2)
I'll informed public... (Score:2)
If a ill informed public votes for a bad law, then that is not so bad.
If a single person decides the fate of millions, that is very bad because being informed has nothing to do with the overall well being of a Republic.
We have a small number of people in Europe, USA and Asia creating lots of problems.
Let me be the first to say they are VERY informed about what they are doing, and very well educated.
These enemies of humanity are working very hard to bring about the destruction of the human race with their g
Where is Wikileaks on this? (Score:2)
If there was ever a government operation that needs to be exposed to public view, it would be this treaty. And because the details are being released to large corporations who fear losing their control over us, it should be comparatively easy to find leakers.
These are not trade agreements (Score:2)
These are not trade agreements.
These are attempts by corporations to obtain by stealth what they never could obtain from open political processes (you know, quaint things like votes in Congress or Parliament). Of course they don't want a public debate on it, which is why it is an "agreement," not a "treaty," even though they routinely and unconstitutionally try and give them the powers of treaties.
These agreements should be opposed as the fruit of an undemocratic and corrupt process, regardless of the actua
US is effectively a Republicratic 1-party state (Score:2)