Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The Trans-Pacific Partnership 226
An anonymous reader writes: This Techdirt story shows how industry lobbyists influenced the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, to the point that one even openly celebrates that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) version copied his own text word for word. The email exchange between Jim DeLisi, from Fanwood Chemical, to Barbara Weisel, a USTR official reads: "Hi Barbara – John sent through a link to the P4 agreement. I have taken a quick look at the rules of origin. Someone owes USTR a royalty payment – these are our rules. They will need some tweaking but will likely not need major surgery. This is a very pleasant surprise. I will study more closely over the weekend."
Of course they did. (Score:5, Insightful)
This has become standard practice for the US.
The industry groups write the treaty, and then tell the government what they want.
Then the US government dutifully becomes lackeys to industry, and advances a position which gives industry ridiculous things which could never be negotiated in public.
During this, they insist on secrecy so that the citizens of none of the countries can know that they're being heavily undermined to advance the interests of US businesses.
Lather, rise, repeat.
The US government isn't just advancing the interests of multinational corporations, they're advancing them to the detriment of the citizens -- which means nobody benefits from these fucking things other than corporations.
Welcome to the global fucking oligarchy. Make no mistake about it, the US government are nothing more than industry shills.
Fuck you, America.
But this is a new low... (Score:5, Informative)
I think it's common knowledge by now that industry can buy legislation. The new low is that the actual text of the bill is being kept under lock and key.
I simply cannot see how it is constitutional to permit this to happen. While I understand that rules are being leveraged to limit its exposure (including the fast-track vote process), the spirit of the Constitution has always advocated for transparency and public ownership of government operations.
I suppose what upsets me the most is that I cannot determine which I am more upset with: what's being done with the TPP or the fact that we don't have enough congressmen speaking out against it. As a representative of the people, any legislative process that seeks to erode the spirit of the Constitution is a threat to their constituents and should not be passed. I don't care if the text of the bill would buy every American a new house; the fact that it's being kept secret should be plenty of reason alone to vote it down.
Re:But this is a new low... (Score:5, Funny)
I simply cannot see how it is constitutional to permit this to happen. While I understand that rules are being leveraged to limit its exposure (including the fast-track vote process), the spirit of the Constitution has always advocated for transparency and public ownership of government operations.
Secret courts, secret legislation. Pretty soon we'll have a secret President too.
"So, who won the election?"
"We can't tell you."
"You can't tell us who the President is?"
"No. National Security. Terrorists."
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Not a bad idea. It's the office, after all, that holds the authority anyway, not the man. So there's no need for the identity of the man to be revealed. "POTUS" is commonly used.
But it doesn't sound very friendly. Maybe come up with some other name for the "face" of the government? Something that expresses the idea that the government is protective of you and looks out for your "best interests" even if you don't know what they are? Like a family member? But not a parent. That's kind of a creepy dynamic, tha
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That's kind of a creepy dynamic, that the government is your mommy or daddy or something. Ew!
Big Mother!
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No, actually his name is Henry (Kissinger)... And he's been running the show for over 45 years.
Re:But this is a new low... (Score:5, Informative)
"Politicians are a reflection of voters"
+1 Funny
What they tell you on your cereal box isn't entirely accurate. If you can find 20 minutes every two years to go vote, perhaps you can also come up with 20 minutes once in your life to watch this TED talk by Lawrence Lessig and learn how american electoral politics really works.
Re:But this is a new low... (Score:4, Interesting)
Voters are often idiots though. They are easily manipulated. They could, theoretically, vote everyone out to be replaced by hard working reformers. But it won't happen because of all the idiots. Politics are like sports fandom and just as illogical - your side are the true heroes and the other side are evil usurpers. Manipulate the voters by telling them to be afraid: afraid of terrorists, afraid of people who look different, afraid of losing their jobs, afraid that someone from a different demographic will gain an advantage, afraid of communits, afraid of fascists, afraid of flipflopping moderates. If you keep people afraid then they will voluntarily give up all their rights.
It's a con game - the people may have all the power but the con man knows how to take it.
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"Voters are often idiots though."
Of course we are. Or more generously, we're not all qualified to govern, we have other trades. That's why we have a Republic, with representatives to figure out the governing stuff for us.
Nearly all of us have somewhere in our circle of known people somebody we consider wiser than us in such matters, who we'd be happy to have represent our interests in government.
There are just two problems. The ratio of citizens to congressmen has gone from a max of 60,000:1 to today's a
Re:But this is a new low... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is one of the few instances where "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" actually applies. If the TPP is so great, why all the secrecy? If you've got to hide the details of a bill or treaty to get it passed, then maybe there's something wrong with your bill/treaty that means it shouldn't be passed!
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Not exactly. Treaties are always negotiated in secret. They kind of have to be. If the entire world gets to see every point and counterpoint and bluff and call you can't negotiate. There's nothing wrong with secret negotiation. And in general without the input of congress. It is the job of the executive branch to negotiate treaties, and the job of the senate to ratify or reject them.
Now once the negotiation is complete, though, there needs to be plenty of time to deliberate over the finished treaty before r
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Other than our Constitution recognizing that a treaty supersedes our own local law and therefore must be approved by a super-majority of two thirds of the Senate. Fast Track reduces that to a simple majority of both Houses of Congress.
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The new low is that the actual text of the bill is being kept under lock and key.
The text of the bill is not secret, because there is no bill. There are only preliminary drafts, that are still under negotiation. When/if a final agreement is reached, it will be submitted to congress for approval, and will not be secret.
Re:But this is a new low... (Score:4, Insightful)
The new low is that the actual text of the bill is being kept under lock and key.
The text of the bill is not secret, because there is no bill. There are only preliminary drafts, that are still under negotiation. When/if a final agreement is reached, it will be submitted to congress for approval, and will not be secret.
Yes, that's true. Usually it will pan out like this. A 3000 page bill is presented to the House. Some Urgent! reason is invented for a fast track through the house before it can be properly evaluated and they pass it. You HAVE to read it to understand what it is then you have to analyze it for what it will do. It is a lot of work but it has to be done.
Politician don't take people seriously if they don't get letters making sure the politicians know what you expect of them and that it will cost them votes if they force is on people. Apathy is and always has been the enemy of western political stability and even Franklin himself said of the constitution 'for all its flaws' IIRC would not protect the US from slipping into despotism. The TPP sure looks like pretty good way to start a slide.
People died to earn the rights we have now and its sad to see people just pissing them away as if they are nothing because people don't understand how to use them, how they came to be or why they're important. You can't blame people because it was achieved by carefully de-educating the population and aggregating the sources of news into a few manageable mega-outlets.
The audacity of these people to chase the very legal core of all western nations makes me wonder where your morals must be to participate in such an activity, which is really just a robbery of rights for capital. That's not Capitalism any more, it's Corporatism dressed in its finest deceptive cowardice come to steal the common good and make it a slave, for life.
Will we get any protection from this domestic enemy? No - you'll be labelled as it.
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And I've got a news flash for anyone not keeping up: Industry lobbyists write *ALL* legislation (in the U.S. anyway, probably in most other countries too).
Re: Of course they did. (Score:2, Flamebait)
Remind me, who wrote the PPACA (Obamacare)? We know it wasn't the sponsors of the bill, since they admitted openly to having never even having read the bill...
And what did the PPACA implement? A requirement for tens of millions of Americans to buy health insurance from private insurance companies, in many cases subsidized with government (taxpayer) money, and any losses insurance companies incur will be reimbursed by government with taxpayer money... Only a fool (or a Democrat supporter on a Kool-Aid IV dri
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This has become standard practice for the US.
The industry groups write the treaty, and then tell the government what they want.
This is due to Republican cuts to Congressional staffs. Remember Newt Gingrich and the "Contract with America"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America#Content_of_the_Contract
>> 3) Cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third
By eliminating independent research staffs, they made it a near-certainty that industry would capture regulation (see also Mancur Olson, "The Rise and Decline of Nations" (1982)
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And yet at every opportunity, American voters support giving MORE power to the government. Industry will go to where the power is and seek to buy it, regardless of who holds it; that's just them acting in their own rational best interests. When you give the power to the government to regulate EVERYTHING, don't be surprised when industry buys the government and the individual ends up getting shafted.
If you keep power away from the government, and keep it in the hands of the people, then industry will seek
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Welcome to the global fucking oligarchy. Make no mistake about it, the US government are nothing more than industry shills.
Which is why in another story, the NSA caused massive damage to US IT multinationals and got away with it.
At the cost of the tax payer (Score:5, Insightful)
Foreign companies are treated very well, governments want the extra jobs.
Why do foreign companies need more/better rights than nationals?
Defenders will say this is false, but it's what TTIP will lead to, like what other similar trade agreements have lead to.
Re:At the cost of the tax payer (Score:5, Interesting)
The economists love to say that trade is great for everyone. But they assume that all parties have an equal amount of advantages and disadvantages. There is this illusion of comparative advantage. But at least with the US we are making trade deals for the sole purpose of businesses lowering their costs to boost profits and make their shareholders richer and their CEOs even richer; while we little people lose opportunities and jobs and stagnant wages. This country's structural unemployment and underemployment is indicative of this.
Protectionism? Absolutely not!
What we need is a business environment like Germany's where government, business and labor all work together for society's overall prosperity. In the US, labor needs much more power (unions) and business needs to be taken down a few notches. I think we need to move towards a German economic model - stop the corporatism in the US.
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I think we need to move towards a German economic model - stop the corporatism in the US.
The problem is that rich people in this country think we need to move to an Indian model. That's why whenever the US Government wants to hold up a nation as an example of an economic powerhouse, it's not Germany but India that is held up as an example.
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I think we need to move towards a German economic model - stop the corporatism in the US.
The problem is that rich people in this country think we need to move to an Indian model. That's why whenever the US Government wants to hold up a nation as an example of an economic powerhouse, it's not Germany but India that is held up as an example.
I'd think they're moving to the Chinese model where government and business is totally interrelated and intertwined (fascistic).
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The economists love to say that trade is great for everyone.
No. This is crony capitalism. Free trade is great for everyone, with government's role being to make sure it stays "free". Nobody outside of the two major political parties will tell you that crony capitalism is good for anybody except the cronies.
Re:At the cost of the tax payer (Score:5, Insightful)
No. This is crony capitalism. Free trade is great for everyone, with government's role being to make sure it stays "free". Nobody outside of the two major political parties will tell you that crony capitalism is good for anybody except the cronies.
This is capitalism in practice. Show me an example of capitalism that exists without cronyism in the real world -- outside of the economists' idealized computer models. "Pure capitalism" is the economists' version of the "perfectly spherical cow".
Re:At the cost of the tax payer (Score:4, Insightful)
No. This is crony capitalism. Free trade is great for everyone, with government's role being to make sure it stays "free". Nobody outside of the two major political parties will tell you that crony capitalism is good for anybody except the cronies.
You mix "free trade" and "capitalism" in your sentences as if they were interchangeable and equivalent. They are not. The U.S. had capitalism without free international trade for a long time -- and still does. Free trade only helps the traders. It just means that the taxes that were levied on duties now have to be collected elsewhere. It's a nice phrase for "shifting the tax burden" -- nothing else. Free trade does not magically lower the cost of government.
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What we need is a business environment like Germany's where government, business and labor all work together for society's overall prosperity.
That's the definition of Italian Fascism. [wikipedia.org]
"Italian Fascism promoted a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy."
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The economists love to say that trade is great for everyone.
You are correct. Economists do love to say that trade is great for everyone. The reason that economists love to say that trade is great for everyone is because it's true, and economists love to say true things. (Exception: exporters who face stiffer competition from foreign suppliers.)
But they assume that all parties have an equal amount of advantages and disadvantages.
What! Nothing could be further from the truth! Economists would never say t
BS Buzzer Sounds (Score:2)
Absolute bullshit. Yes, a few lucky survivors of the tsunami might make it thru your euphemistic 'rising tide', but in the aggregate, there will be (hell, are already) fewer and fewer living wage jobs left (this is intentional, as it will drive wages down, eagerly taken by people nearly driven ma
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Economist also believe that money is what determines what is true.
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Come and look at the idiocy that following a false premise leads to.
Business is NOT private government, try again.
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The economists love to say that trade is great for everyone.
Trade the economic concept is great if there's a level playing field. "Free" "trade" the Orwellian slogan is about rent-seeking and feudalism.
Who is surprised by this? (Score:5, Insightful)
This has been SOP for years.
The US government is now acting as a foreign policy arm for multinational corporations, and doing secret negotiations so nobody knows just how badly we're being fucked over for our corporate overlords.
This is the worst form of capitalism, one in which all consideration is for corporations who have the government on the payroll, and in which the citizens of the countries get fucked over.
America has been allowing corporations to write the trade treaties for a long time. Because America is essentially a corrupt shell beholden to corporations.
Re:Who is surprised by this? (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair, I suspect much of this is the general dumbing down of our leaders combined with the increasingly technical World they are asked to govern.
The Congressman need not understand (or employ someone who understands) with all those helpful lobbyists at their beck and call.
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To be fair, I suspect much of this is the general dumbing down of our leaders combined with the increasingly technical World they are asked to govern.
Nope - it's just greed and corruption. Idiocy is optional and not necessary.
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Once again, proof the system works! (Score:2)
Well, for the .1%, anyway. They write the laws, they write the trade agreements, they socialise risk and privatise the rewards. Wake me up when the revolution starts, I want to Tivo it.
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.1%, cops are in the .1%. Teachers, public unions, professors. Get real. More like 51% living off the other 49%, through the power of the gun.
This is the second time I have seen this exact post in this thread. It's a bot!
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Lol, spoken like a true tool of your betters. Yessir, massa sir, those sure are some entitled po' people!
And another one. Stop gunking up our threads with your algorithm!
I'm not smart enough (Score:5, Interesting)
to know how this thing will operate. Whether there needs to be an agreement, and what needs to be in it, must be decided by some folks who have some decent idea of how these relationships operate.
The unfortunate part is that no one involved is doing anything to establish their credibility with regard to my interests. The people involved are plenty smart, but most of their words and actions seem to indicate that they have little to no consideration of my interests.
Are my interests more important than yours? Of course not. Neither are yours more important than mine. And most importantly, neither are the authors' more important than ours, collectively.
It would be nice to see some attention paid to that fact.
Re:I'm not smart enough (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the TPP is your standard free trade agreement fare - removing tarriffs, stopping countries from favoring their local companies and punishing foreign ones, etc. If you're a fan of free trade agreements, you'll probably be a fan of it. If you hate free trade agreements, you'll probably hate it.
The part that most people on Slashdot will hate regardless of views on free trade agreements in general however is the IP section. It basically imposes an even more rightsholder-friendly version of US IP law on all member states. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been railing about it since the earlier versions were leaked, like Issa's leak in 2012. It's not gotten any better.
But as for all of the other stuff: 1) if you like free trade agreements, "Yeay!". 2) If you don't like free trade agreements, "Boo!"
As for the secrecy, unfortunately, this is generally how complex international treaties are negotiated - the concept being that if the public is involved in every stage of the negotiations, they'll never get anywhere; there's so many countless details to iron out and a lot of give-and-take between countries. It's supposed to be fair because when it's done, the full text is made public and each country gets to vote on it; it's not like it suddenly becomes some sort of "secret law". But obviously whenever you negotiate something in secret it's going to make the public suspicious of it - that should pretty much be a given.
Re:I'm not smart enough (Score:5, Informative)
Please stop the stream of BS. Most of the tariffs and similar obstructions to free trade have BEEN LONG ELIMINATED BETWEEN US AND EU.
This agreement is about demolishing democracy as the last obstacle of "free trade" where "free trade" means "governments having any sovereign power left to actually be able to legislate for their constituents against the power of capital".
Re:I'm not smart enough (Score:5, Informative)
The EU is not a member party to the negotiations of the Trans Pacific Partnership.
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It is easy to confuse TTP with TTIP ...
Both are being kept secret, available only to the ones doing the direct negotiation ... and are containing much of the same cruft favouring transnational corporations over nations and their citizens.
Re:I'm not smart enough (Score:4, Informative)
Some European countries are defining reserved sectors in the TTIP negotiations, like healthcare, so that some transnational corporation can't sue them over having to compete with an established national service. Others, like UK aren't having any reserved sectors. From the rush David Cameron seems to be in to get it approved I can only assume he is being very well rewarded.
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Actually, it's questionable, as recent very good Der Spiegel article sums it up:
http://www.spiegel.de/internat... [spiegel.de]
Almost everything said here applies to TTP, because TTP includes a country with significant protections for their agriculture and specific societal rights (Japan).
Basically these two deals offer both a great opportunity to those in favour of actually advancing capitalism, socialism (note, I'm talking in factual terms here, not hysterical US pseudo-definition of the word, which means that those tw
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Outstanding! (Score:2)
Re: I'm not smart enough (Score:2)
No one is insisting on invo
Secrecy (Score:3, Insightful)
> As for the secrecy, unfortunately, this is generally how complex international treaties are negotiated [...]
No.
In a democracy, *I want my representative to know what's in the negotiations*, *I want to read about the content in the newspapers*.
I don't need to take part in said negotiations, but I want to have an informed opinion on what is being negotiated on my behalf. *I want my representative to have an informed opinion* when it comes to the up/down vote.
Everything else is anti-democratic.
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Then, perhaps we shouldn't have complex international treaties. We can do this in small pieces that can be decided in an actually democratic matter. It's the same thing with omnibus bills. If you break them down into smaller pieces, it's harder to get a rider in there.
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Nice concept, but because treaties are arrived at by a process of give and take - where if one party gives in one topic of discussion, they're going to insist on getting something that they want in regards to another - not realistic.
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> Most of the TPP is your standard free trade agreement fare
Nope. Only 5 of 29 chapters are about trade, the others are about granting power to corporations that cover essentially every aspect of our economy.
http://bit.ly/1HUXjrz
Cut the crapola, rei (Score:2)
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This isn't the part of the TPP that we object to.
I oppose protectionism because I've never seen an example of it that HASN'T been detrimental to the people they're trying to protect but I dont want US laws foisted onto Australia as they are in the TPP.
If the TPP only contained a trade partnership eliminating tariffs, trade restriction
Re:I'm not smart enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Please read your own link better: It says " it will grant the authority to decide and negotiate the terms of agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to the executive branch," "...critical to successfully negotiating its terms internationally", etc. Duh. That's what we're talking about here. It's being negotiated in secret. It will not become some sort of "secret law". Once it's done, the full text will be released and congress will have to vote on it, just like all treaties.
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Wow, long-time Slashdotter doesn't update their profile in years and makes a number of comments in a thread - conspiracy details at 11! Did you bother to stop and check what Cursor.org actually was? It's was a minneapolis-based progressive (read: generally anti free trade) news aggregator. Hint: I'm opposed to TPP, at least in its current form.
Again, I'll ask, where do I get my paycheck [telegraph.co.uk]? ;) Here? [aloha-hawaii.com] ;)
Same thing for TTIP and TPP (Score:5, Interesting)
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It might require ever-better-informed and educated consumers.
Not all of it is new. But something IS new. (Score:5, Insightful)
One small consolation is now some in the USA feel what it was like to be a poor South American or South Asian or African whose government was totally controlled by foreign companies.
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FIFA 2.0 (Score:5, Funny)
And then the US complains that FIFA officials are corrupt.
Ignorant (Score:3, Interesting)
This is how most bills are written. That is not a cynical but rather purely factual statement. The shock and surprise on TPP just makes you look ignorant.
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Exactly. What, should we be creating international trade deals without consulting the industry leaders who will be affected?
Do you really think "consulting" is all that's going on here?
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Of course not, they should have a seat or two at the table. But the rest of the table should be filled with Constitutional scholars, citizens rights groups, economists, etc. This is a little like pcreating an fossil fuel emissions/pollution policy solely based on the opinion of oil/coal/natural gas companies, of course they're going to create a policy that is highly advantageous to them but screws everyone else over. All effected parties consumers, regulators and companies need to be included in such dis
Re:Ignorant (Score:4, Insightful)
This is how most bills are written. That is not a cynical but rather purely factual statement.
And you're okay with that? The point isn't that it is unusual, the point is that it is anti-democratic and contrary to the interests of the general population.
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This is how most bills are written. That is not a cynical but rather purely factual statement. The shock and surprise on TPP just makes you look ignorant.
...and you think that your position of aloof resignation, criticising those that would be unhappy with the situation, is *better*?
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
A law so secret that you can't even view it unless you're a congressperson, and even then you have to go to a locked room without recording equipment.
But how could that be suspicious at all?
And now we find out it's written and conceived by multinational corporations.
And we all know how benevolent and caring *they* are.
More seriously, anyone who votes for this has been bribed or blackmailed. It's an obvious takeover of nation-states by a globe spanning elite corporate-state.
Just trying to catch up to the insurance industry (Score:2)
They may need to spend a little more money to get that kind of clout, though. The companies that stand to benefit the most from TPP don't own as much of congress as the insurance industry. Thankfully for them, though, they aren't competing
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You're clueless if you don't think there aren't big players in TPP.
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You're clueless if you don't think there aren't big players in TPP.
Did you mean "clueless if you don't think there are big players in TPP"? Because I certainly don't think there are no big players in TPP. The big thing though is that those players don't own as much of Washington as the insurance industry owns, which is why it is moving slightly slower.
Going to a Town (Score:2)
I'm so tired of you, America.
https://youtu.be/UUkcJlekP9s [youtu.be]
Best to observe each corporate entity (Score:2)
Also, they represent the Blackstone Group, which is self-explanatory.
This is called corruption (Score:3)
It is what destroys societies: Short-term interests taking over the long-term making of policy. You can look as far back as Rome to find documentation of the destructive effects.
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Right. Because liberals are so famously pro-free-trade-agreements and conservatives so famously opposed to them?
Meanwhile in Bizarro World, the Democratic Party has introduced a "Kill the Gays" bill while the Republican Party has introduced a bill requiring all power plant CO2 emissions to be sequestered inside the shafts of government-subsidized wind turbines.
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Right. Because liberals are so famously pro-free-trade-agreements and conservatives so famously opposed to them?
Meanwhile in Bizzaro world this treaty was negotiated by Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.
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Negotiations for TPP began in 2005.
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Oh that's nice. So it is all BUSH's fault, and for the past 6 years Obama has been fighting the good fight to stop it.
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Nope. Both of them supported it. Among the rank and file, however, there's no questions that far more opposition to free trade bills comes from left. Just look at voting records for past free trade bills.
Re:You want a Nanny State, Socialism, Big Governme (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, but you seem to be confusing a corrupt oligarchy for a nanny state.
And that's pretty much bullshit.
This is governments becoming beholden to corporations, and selling the farm for some magic beans.
This isn't a nanny state, this is a wholesale co-opting of government for corporate interests.
This has NOTHING at all to do with socialism, and everything to do with corporate welfare and stacking the deck for them.
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This has NOTHING at all to do with socialism, and everything to do with corporate welfare and stacking the deck for them.
Sorry, but arguing about the difference between socialism and fascism is like arguing about the difference between Sprite and 7-Up. You may well have a preference, but both are terrible for you.
Obama executed a nearly textbook example of Socialism with the takeover of GM. He fired the CEO, allocated resources directly to "Green" cars, etc. The government controlled a means of production.
He executed an almost perfect example of Fascism in the ACA that put the coercive power of government behind huge corpora
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There is one 2016 candidate who opposes the secrecy of the TPP:
http://thehill.com/policy/fina... [thehill.com]
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Oh thank God we can make this a partisan issue, for a moment I thought I wouldn't have a scapegoat.
Well, which is it? If you don't like what the executive branch of the government is doing during this negotiating process, do you hold the current administration responsible for what you dislike, or not? Yes or no? You seem willing to stipulate there's an "issue," but you're disinclined to lay that at the feet of the one entity that has sole responsibility for the nature of the issue. The administration is highly partisan in all of its activities, which is no surprise. This activity is entirely in their la
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TPP is not a partisan issue because "both" parties are united in bringing it to us. If we had a republican president right now, we'd be getting precisely the same screwing.
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Yes, heaven forbid we should govern by consensus.
I agree, we should have government by consensus. Are you willing to go along with anything I say, policy-wise? No? Why not? Please be specific.
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No, of course not! You're too damn partisan, selective, looking after a specific group of people.
Hilarious.
So, you're all for consensus, except for with the people you don't like. Government by compromise! All they have to do is do it your way, right?
The point of having checks and balances, and of encouraging vigorous debate is so that you have to make a very strong case for how you want to exercise things like the power to take people's money and property away, or enable/prevent them from running a business, etc.
You say you don't want to do things I like, because I'm "looking after a specifi
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It's nothing about liking you, or even 'liking' anybody. As usual you're making shit up, or just dredging up the usual trash from your favorite political rags.
Ah, anything to avoid the substance of the discussion. What does "by consensus" mean to you, precisely? Perhaps that a bunch of elected representatives get to together and discuss whether and how to do something, and then the prevailing (by way of votes) approach is the one that's selected? You know, as in ... "elections matter?"
"Consensus" is not the same as "unanimity." Tell me how your idea of consensus works: should people opposed to a policy or law simply agree to it, despite their better judgement
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Projection. You're the one who said "are you willing to go along with anything I[you] say"
Are you really that obtuse? I said that to point out that the GP was being completely disingenuous. He doesn't want an adversarial, debate-based government - he says he wants something else, and used the word "consensus." What he really means is that he wants things his way, and thinks that people who disagree with him ideologically should just do what he says anyway, because, you know, consensus.
LOL why I love the left (Score:3)
You laugh at libertarians ok
At least they can figure out that BIG BUSINESS controlling GIGANTIC GOVERNMENT is worse than just Big Business.
BTW when you find your incorruptible supermen to run your giant government let the religious folk know about them. They call them angels and would likely want to meet them.
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And you want to make the tyranny bigger and more powerful. Oh I forgot the people you put in will be different. Otay.
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I really should get pay for teaching remedial education when I post here.
Lets go through this,
1. Giving more power, and greater mandate to a government , to interfere in the lives of its subjects produces the following effects.
A. The government grows larger and by necessity more complex.
B. The amount of a society's resources it controls becomes larger, and the incentive towards corruption becomes proportionately greater.
The consequence of 1,A, and B is that empowering a government to greater heights will pr
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