Trading Away Our Environmental Future: The Trans-Pacific Partnership

[marmar]

(Truthout) A day after Obama's State of the Union reaffirmed his support for a trade agreement that opponents call "NAFTA on steroids," those opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) remain equally committed to stop it. January 21 is national call-in day to stop "fast track," the trade authority that hands over Congress' constitutional trade and legislative writing authority to the president. Earlier this month, we listened in on a national call and strategy session with author Naomi Klein, Ilana Solomon, responsible trade director of the Sierra Club, and Alisa Simmons, deputy director of Global Trade Watch, about why they oppose the TPP and the free trade model the United States has promoted for over a quarter century.

Deep in the throes of the financial crisis and record job loss, Canada's largest province, Ontario, passed the Green Energy and Economy Act. It was 2009. Climate experts around the world celebrated it as the best plan North America had to get off fossil fuels. The centerpiece was a local content provision that encouraged green energy producers to sell back to the grid. In the case of solar energy, 40 to 60 percent of all content was required to be made with local components. By 2013, 31,000 jobs had been created. Only one coal plant remained operating.

"That's where the good news ends," explains Klein, whose recent book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, discusses the plan at length. The European Union and Japan took Ontario to the World Trade Organization for violating its trade obligations. "Sure enough," Klein says, "the government of my province repealed parts of the green energy plan." The message was clear for governments everywhere, she adds. Craft local green policies and you'll be challenged by an unelected trade tribunal.

Klein was part of a recent nationwide call organized by MoveOn and co-partners, Citizens Trade Campaign, the Sierra Club, AFL-CIO and Communications Workers of America, among others, to collectively endorse the "FlushtheTPP" campaign. The TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that the United States and 11 other nations have been negotiating for over five years, appears to be close to a deal, say observers who are relegated to watching from the sidelines. Corporations and trade negotiators are the only ones at the negotiating table. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/28634-trading-away-our-environmental-future-the-trans-pacific-partnership

[djean111]

1. Just got a mealy-mouthed reply from my Rep., Rooney, saying how very wondrous and important the TPP

is.
Here is my reply:

Surely you must know that the TPP has only five chapters that deal with trade, and the rest is nothing short of a corporate coup. The Investor State will hold precedence over sovereign states when it comes to any law or rules or regulations that affect their profits. If they cannot overturn or weaken a law or regulation, they can go ahead and sue for damages, which people like me have to pay, using our taxes that should go to health care and infrastructure, etc. Banks will have free rein again. Wages will come DOWN to compete with lower-paying signatory countries - wages will NOT go up. I will no longer be able to see where my food comes from - no labels, so I would not know if I am eating cleanly-raised or caught shrimp, or shrimp raised in filth, and then bleached, from Vietnam. Poorer countries will not be able to make or purchase generic drugs, as Pharma will give them formularies that they have to purchase from, at higher prices. All government contracts over a set amount will be bid on by countries with lower wages. I am not so naive that I think that things like this will make American wages rise. No, they will fall even lower. The TPP, as it stands is, in my opinion, tantamount to treason. THIS is the new world order that Tea Party adherents bleat about - not the silliness of thinking the UN or Obama will take their guns, but the underhanded greasy sneakiness of the corporations taking their rights and their ability to support themselves. If you vote for Fast Track, I can assure you that I will become very active politically, and volunteer my time to defeat you in a primary or in a general election, even though this district is safely gerrymandered.

I admit to being angry as I wrote this. I requested a reply. I am registered Democrat right now, but I can easily re-register in order to vote against this guy in a primary. My district is gerrymandered, so my little Dem vote is always pretty much a gesture.

[RiverLover]

2. Thank you djean!!

Excellent reply. We have to let them know our eyes are wide open no matter how they spin their sunshine & roses version.