Here's the basic problem with the Trans Pacific Screwnership
We the people have been getting our butts handed to us in the name of "free trade" agreements for several decades now.
The proponents of these things claim that they are simply removing the barriers that enable nations to trade among themselves. Free trade will allow goods and services to pass more easily among nations, therefore lifting all boats. Anyone who is against that is an "isolationist" and "protectionist" and against the benefits of trade.
If that were ALL they did it would be one thing. There are legitimate positions both pro and con on the merits and drawbacks of tariffs, quotas and other limitations to the flow of goods.
BUT THAT IS JUST THE STATED REASON for these CON JOBS.
What they are REALLy about is undermining the ability of nations, localities and the population to make and enforce their own laws in many spheres.
They set up international "rules" that have nothing to do with trade that are able to challenge legitimate laws passed by governments.
And, worse yet, these rules are NOT based on lifting all boats. They are secret rules based on enshrining the goals and priorities of global corporate capitalism, as the sole value of society. They GUT the ability of nations to implement things like labor standards, environmental regulations and consumer protection.
Now, governments are not perfect. Some of them are awful. But at least governments should in theory be accountable to their people. They should not be subservient to a set of rules set in secret by appointed bodies of oligarchs.
That's the ultimate danger with scams like the TPP..... no matter what high-minded phrases they are presented with.
If these agreements were so friggin wonderful, they wouldn't be negotiated in secret in the shadows. The proponents would want us to understand their terms and they would want us to have a vote on them.
They don't because they know they are a scam, and they don;t want the rest if us to find out until it is too late.
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