TPP Agreed On; Here We Go...

The dozens of petitions, letters etc. we all signed against the Trans-Pacific Partnership... and there were a lot of 'em... had ultimately no effect on the 12 nations secretly negotiating the details of this secret treaty which no one gets to read before its ratification is voted on in Congress and the other 11 national legislatures because the deal is... um... secret. (Shadowproof; BBC.)

Now we have to stop it in Congress if possible. It will not be easy. The old saying comes to mind, "The opposite of Progress is Congress," and with the manifestly idiotic people in charge, that is very liable to be the case here.

In short, TPP is being crammed down our throats and up our butts by people who do not have our best interests in mind, let alone at heart. Sorry; that's not how we do things here. Or at least it wasn't until the previous and current presidents transformed our government into a corporatocracy and started giving the biggest of businesses everything they ever dreamed of wanting from the government, meanwhile damning the rest of us to our crumb on a take-it-or-leave-it basis (i.e., fast track).

Get in touch with your Senators and Congress-critters. This one is big and bad...

‘The War Is Over; The Good Guys Lost’ –OR– Senate Voted Cloture On TPP Fast-Track,Will Vote On TPP As Soon As Wednesday

TPP - the invisible monster

The first step toward passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership was done and the bill itself will likely pass Wednesday. Worse, 13 Senate Democrats and 28 House Democrats voted with Republicans to do the deed, and a Democratic president apparently intends to sign it.

Is there no federal elected official concerned about the public's wellbeing? Hello? Anyone??

Pelosi: ‘Slow Down The Fast Track To Get A Better Deal For The American People’ — Trade Deal ‘Sidetracked’ By House Dems, GOP

Astonishing, isn't it? Obama managed, in the secret trade deal for the TPP, to offend Democrats and Republicans alike, for different reasons, but to such a degree that the House slapped his wrist on the matter by a vote of nearly 3-1.

Erica Werner and Charles Babington, at AP via TPM:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House sidetracked a high-profile White House-backed trade bill on Friday, a humiliating defeat for President Barack Obama inflicted by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and dozens of rank-and-file lawmakers from his own party.

The 302-126 vote came a few hours after Obama journeyed to the Capitol to deliver a last-minute personal plea to fellow Democrats to support the measure, which would allow him to negotiate global trade deals that Congress could approve or reject but not change.

...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership might be bad for us living, working Americans (who knows; we only know of this secretly crafted deal what some people have seen fit to leak), but even worse for the nation: it would represent yet another instance of Congress's granting the President "fast‑track" authority, whereby the President may put up a bill for a congressional vote and Congress must vote it up-or-down, with no amendments. I'm sorry, but that is not the history and tradition of American legislative process, and I believe that if fast‑track were regularly instituted, it would eviscerate the "democratic" part of the democratic process. NO on TPP and NO on fast‑track: it's a two‑fer from the viewpoint of Americans seeking to retain control of their government. TPP may ultimately come back from the grave, but it appears it will at least actually be debated by Congress in (ahem) the American way.

(Look in the article at who supports this rejection: what a coalition! Jeebus, the bedfellows I find myself surrounded with are strange indeed!)

Senate Clears TPP Fast Track For Obama, Republicans

The Senate just voted the required 60-vote majority to strip itself of most of the power it intrinsically had to forge a satisfactory deal on the mysterious, secretly negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. With fast-track in place, Congress can vote the TPP up-or-down, but cannot amend it, essentially making an international trade organization a fourth all-powerful branch of the US federal government.

So... do we get to see the contents of the TPP now? Or is this secret law still secret? And...

Who really runs the "democratic" government of the United States of America? Right... I don't know, either, but it damned surely isn't "we the people"!

Robert Reich Explains The Trans-Pacific Partnership

This thing is pretty scary, and Reich explains it quite clearly:

(Watch Robert Reich TPP clip on YouTube)

Now there's irony for you: TPP is clearly a creation of the ultra-right-wing corporatocracy, and I always thought the Right was horrified at the notion of a world government. But what is known about the TPP so far (shhhh! it's a secret!) sounds a whole lot like a de facto world government to me, all the bad parts and none of the good...

How Will The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Affect Prescription Drug Prices?

A bargain price... only 1 arm, 1 leg!

That question has a simple answer (.pdf) from Public Citizen, and it will not be to your liking, unless you are heavily invested in Big Pharma. Remember, the partnership will be international, so if you're in the US, e.g. in New England, and getting your drugs from Canada, you will probably be deprived of gaining any advantage via that option (which I believe is not legal even now for US citizens).

Have a nice day! [/sarcasm]

(H/T Robert Reich.)

Trans-Pacific Partnership — If It Passes, We Are Fucked

Gaius Publius at AMERICAblog introduces a video of Bill Moyers interviewing Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism and Dean Baker of CEPR and Beat the Press (all three individuals are in my blogroll) on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). What is TPP? About all anyone can offer is "known unknowns" about it:

• It's "NAFTA on steroids" ... 12 nations (see the map at the link above; China is explicitly excluded),
• Its provisions are being negotiated entirely in secret,
• When the treaty is presented, it will be fast-tracked through Congress on an up-or-down vote,
• Its provisions, like those of NAFTA, will override the laws of individual member nations including the laws of individual states of the United States on subjects such as the environment, labor laws, regulations on financial instruments, patent laws, etc.,
• For US citizens and workers, prices (e.g., prescription drug prices) will go up, wages in virtually every industry touched by the agreement will go down, patent periods will be greatly extended, and virtually all benefits of the agreement will probably go to the top 1%.

All this is "as best anyone knows," because the negotiators ain't talkin', at least not for public consumption, and apparently no one of our viewpoint has any inside information, not even, as you might expect, members of Congress whose committee posts are relevant to trade, etc.

So this thing will be sprung upon us, fully formed, voted up-or-down... and everyone in every nation in the agreement will have his or her life affected, very probably for the worse. No matter what your politics (how you voted) or your job (if you have one), the President and Congress appear to have no interest in what you think. Have a nice day!