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Time to face facts: Assange played the left like a fiddle on TPP
TPP nations agree to pursue trade deal without USIn a pushback against the Trump administration's protectionist rhetoric, 11 nations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal have agreed on Sunday to proceed without the U.S. The 11 nations met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting for trade ministers in Hanoi and agreed to assess options to bring the deal into force "expeditiously."
"These efforts would address our concern about protectionism, contribute to maintaining open markets, strengthening the rules-based international trading system, increasing world trade, and raising living standards," the group said in a ministerial statement on Sunday. The group said it aimed to complete the assessment before it meets again on the margins of the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in mid-November in Vietnam.
TPP had been considered all but dead after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the pact, a broad 12-nation trade deal, which he claimed was a "disaster" that would hurt U.S. manufacturing. Although Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had initially said that the TPP would be "meaningless" without the U.S., more recently, Japanese officials had begun to second calls from Australia and New Zealand to proceed without the U.S.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/20/tpp-nations-agree-to-pursue-trade-deal-without-us.html
I remember when TPP threads used to dominate GD... Might as well be 50 years ago with all the shit that's happened since then...
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MineralMan
(146,281 posts)Not in any way. Once those NSA files were made public by Wikileaks, that should have been apparent to everyone. The recent "wannacry" ransomware exploit was made possible by that particular leak.
Assange is an anarchist, who wants to take down all governments. What would replace them is not a concern of his, really. Some people championed Assange when it seemed like he was working on their side. But he was not. He's not on anyone's side, really.
Assange and Wikileaks are one of the most dangerous combinations going today. Neither deserves our support.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)to expect everyone in the world to be a friend to the US, or to expect that they are morally obligated to be, especially in its mission to maintain global military and economic hegemony, at the expense of many people in the world.
I mean, would you really expect someone who lost their families during the illegal US attacks against, say, Iraq or Laos, to support its agenda in the world? Did you see the 'collateral damage' video? Anyone whose conscience is not shocked by that, doesn't really have a conscience, at all.
Did he say he want's to destroy all governments, and that he doesn't care what replaces them? I don't remember seeing that. Are you sure you understand what an anarchist is?
MineralMan
(146,281 posts)Sorry.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)There's no need to apologize. I'm not offended.
Demsrule86
(68,539 posts)worthless life in prison.
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)ronnie624
(5,764 posts)uponit7771
(90,323 posts)ronnie624
(5,764 posts)But so is a quasi-legal system of bribery that subordinates the will of the people to billions of dollars in campaign donations, only that is much closer to home.
If the official conspiracy theory is true, then the hacking of the DNC emails, was nothing more than a standard covert operation that is carried out all over the world, by many countries, including the United States. It is absolutely nothing to start a war over. The best way to keep your secrets, is to make sure they're secure.
There is conclusive evidence, that the US meddled in Russian elections, in a far, far bigger way, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The West has also, led by the US, expanded a hostile alliance, right up to the Russian border, facilitated violent revolution in neighboring countries, and regularly conducted aggressive military exercises off the Russian coast. This threatens Russian economic and military security, and seeks to reduce its influence, in its own region of the world. This is truly provocative conduct, that generates the risk of war.
People need to stop hyperventilating before it leads to disaster.
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)Both Ciobo and Aranda said they would welcome the U.S. back into the fold."
Basically the US can rejoin at anytime in the future. It's already been signed by the Obama administration and for the next 5 years or so it also has fast track status. Even after that, it can be passed anytime the congress changes it's mind. It won't take long for someone to start selling the whole "we're losing jobs because we aren't in" and all it will take is one recession to bring it back to life.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)I could have taken them to task for a subject line that was unsupported by the referenced article.
I could have taken them to task for pejorative comments about "the left".
Instead, I made a point of my own which was that, quite to the contrary, as supported by the referenced article, the stage has been set for this agreement to come back at virtually anytime. The VAST majority of the support for this treaty was from the right, and they have successfully positioned themselves to accomplish that. So who got played by whom?
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Also becasue Obama supported it. Of course they'll leave the door open in anticipation that DT changes his mind. It's been made obvious that he doesn't even know the barebones of how these agreements work. It's roughly 50/50 if he changes his mind. Gotta love the nefarious intent assigned everyone, but I know that's part of the defend Assange thing.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)The tea party bunch did too. The conservatives defended it.
As for Assange, he's a symptom not a cause. Secrecy as a way of governing is becoming more and more impossible, really since the Pentagon papers. We now have an adversarial press and on an international level. Information will get out. It was a mistake to attempt to negotiate the treaty in extreme secrecy, it turned alot of support against it. Secrecy just ends up being a way to get blackmailed. It empowers ones opponents. One doesn't have to walk around naked, but they do have to be willing to have their points of view exposed, especially at the discretion of their opponents. A strategy that relies upon the ability to contain adverse information is a strategy waiting to fail.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Anyone eating up his propaganda last year was taken in by a self serving asshole w a vendetta against Obama and Hillary. Those blinded by that hatred still can't see it, but they're rubes. Transparency isn't transparent when it's edited and given fake context, and sprinkled with outright lies.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)We are effectively in the "post secrecy" period. By trying to operate using the power of secrecy opens you up to manipulation by outside sources that will publish what you won't reveal. And they won't necessarily publish in an open and honest manner either. But in the absence of information from the source, alternate sources are empowered.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Editing out parts of conversations and dates is manipulation- why would you rely on someone who is doing that? Who is pretending to be impartial but has the most obvious agenda? "Post secrecy" is not admirable or realistic, becasue he was peddling lies and pretending they were big secrets, while also keeping his own secrets.
People are going to be spreading bullshit- when someone has a crappy biased record like Assange we don't need anyone making excuses for it. They ought to learn from it and find better fucking sources. He played y'all. It's over. He's lost his credibility.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)He is a symptom. That's the point. He's not the only one, and if we keep trying to keep secrets that won't keep, we'll continue to empower these people.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)There's never going to be a post secrecy world, People can't actually function and get anything done with a damn spotlight on them- and people will make shit up no matter what. People have to learn to vet their sources instead of relying on their echo chambers.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)Rule 1 is that you don't wanna do/say anything in private that you can't discuss publicly. Rule 2 is that as one is working, one must prepare to make public the process and the information. There can be a delay, but one can't operate on the "no one will ever see this" principal. In the case of the TPP it was foolish to think they could go years without releasing anything. It was foolish to think they could lock out various parties and they would just sit by and do nothing. They were worried about the Senate and they should have realized how many people out there were trying to get anything, and most of them weren't going to be looking for supportive information. It was predictable that something would happen and it was darn near irresponsible that they did nothing to deal with it, much less prepare for it.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)There are also good reasons that parts of the TPP were not available for the public to review- that's typical for trade treaties. I swear to god you'd think people had never been around the block before, all the complaints over how SOP suddenly became a huge issue, lol. Blah blah unlimited debates never happened, super delegates have, also caucuses. It's not all a conspiracy, LOL. Politicians need room to negotiate without people interfering every fucking step of the way. These demand that the whole system change in the blink of an eye are naive. It's ridiculous.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)That's sorta the point. The days of operating in complete secrecy for years, especially on something that was far more than just a trade treaty are over. And no, there aren't "good reasons". Yes, they need "room", but it also can't be a "black box". And this reality has been building for the better part of 40 years, so that's hardly a "blink of the eye". They didn't have to be "immediately" available, but they had no hope of never releasing this information before it was signed. Anyone inside, or on the periphery that was unhappy with the results was going to do exactly what happened. And the failure of the administration to realize this was just plain naive. And it empowered their opponents.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Spreading the fake news like they used to. Whatever Wiki did years ago is overshadowed by their partisan actions and spreading lies to voters in america and now France. They are done.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)And they might "do it better", i.e. less suceptible to being used and manipulated. They will be vastly less careless, but doesn't mean they still won't have a point of view or goals, that might not be openly stated.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Happening. You had to totally lack common sense to take him at his word last year.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)But more importantly, he should have seen this coming. The next person probably will.
Demsrule86
(68,539 posts)It allowed foreign companies to pollute at will and sue anyone who tried to stop them, we lost more jobs ...there was actually slavery in the deal...it was a bad deal. I am not sorry we are out of it. We have to look at these trade deals and determine how to make them so they work for us...they work for other countries but not us...and I feel you can not make deals with countries that have a very low wage...becomes it is a race to the bottom.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)If you think there's no way to make trade deals I don't know what to say to you- we do trade with these low wage countries with the deals or without.
I wasn't for the TPP as is but I think we actually can benefit from deals and regulations.
Demsrule86
(68,539 posts)"So the fast track plan to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership has run into a new wrinkle after an amendment passed in the Senate debate: slavery. Yes, really, slavery: the Senate voted for an amendment that would make it more difficult for countries that engage in slavery to be in the TPP, and the Obama administration objected. This is bizarre stuff, folks, but welcome to the world of international trade deals. From Ryan Grim’s article the day Fast Track was passed, about the amendment in question:
That measure would bar governments considered to be complicit in human trafficking from receiving the economic benefits of a fast-tracked trade deal. Menendez, the author of the provision, has described it as a human rights protection that will prevent U.S. workers from competing with modern-day slave labor.
The administration has pushed against the provision, saying it would prevent Malaysia from participating in the deal, and eliminate incentives for the country to upgrade its human trafficking enforcement. Human rights advocates strongly support the language that passed the Senate on Friday."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/slavery-really_b_7462932.html
"The State Department on Monday took Malaysia off a list of countries with particularly egregious human trafficking records, clearing the path for the country’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, one of the top political priorities for the Obama administration.
The move to officially upgrade Malaysia from Tier 3 to Tier 2 in the department’s annual report on human trafficking came despite scant evidence that the country has improved oversight of the businesses that enslave workers within its borders. It has raised concerns among some anti-trade activists that the decision was made for purely political reasons."
https://theintercept.com/2015/07/27/blocked-trade-pact-failure-trafficking-malaysia-suddenly-gets-passing-grade/
Here is the google I used to pull up the above...hundreds more.
https://www.google.com/search?q=there+is+slavery+allowed+in+the+TPP&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS730US730&oq=there+is+slavery+allowed+in+the+TPP+&aqs=chrome..69i57.11587j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Demsrule86
(68,539 posts)I also gave you the google so you can go see it for yourself...but you don't want to face the truth...I love Obama and get why he wanted it but it was a bad treaty.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Becasue I'm reading a lot of negative RW spin and nothing pointing toward a solution. I liked Menedez's addition but would love to hear other ideas. Doing nothing is t going to help.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)No progress in this version of "progressive". That sucks.
Demsrule86
(68,539 posts)treaties never have any sort of enforcement mechanism. Nothing is better than the TPP would have been.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)I'm not sure why that's not better than ignoring them?
I don't know what the alternate plan is that improves human rights situation abroad? Seems like everyone slamming this has an isolationist bend which makes me think it's fake concern, to be honest.
Demsrule86
(68,539 posts)and to allow them to participate is wrong.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)What's your plan to end this - it appears you think not addressing it is better? Seriously?
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)in the Pacific.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)That's a bit like saying pulling out gives the sun a great opportunity to rise in the east. China is ALREADY a huge dominating force in the pacific. It's why we depend upon them to handle the North Korea situation. It's why they virtually supply Walmart. It's why they control most of Apple's production. Their power is growing because they have the economic capacity to make it be so. The TPP wasn't going to change that. The TPP in fact was an attempt to get them to want to participate in the TPP. Predominately to protect intellectual properties rights. That may still come to be since as the article suggested, the other 11 nations may proceed without us. But either way, they will continue to be a dominating force in the region, and beyond.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)uponit7771
(90,323 posts).. suck people in and get their trust
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Assange leaked documents that were supposedly late-stage drafts of the TPP.
Various NGOs analyzed these drafts from the points of view of health care, environmental protection, etc., and pointed out the problems that would arise.
Those criticisms were aired on DU.
In response, the TPP defenders on DU -- or maybe they should be called the anti-anti-TPPers -- said these purported documents had no official sanction and might just be complete fabrications by Wikileaks, and anyway even if they were accurate they were just drafts so everything might change. We TPP opponents pointed out that WikiLeaks had a track record of accuracy, not fabrication, and that drafts reflecting several years of negotiations weren't going to be substantially altered in the last few months.
Once the final official text was released, we heard no more about these smears of Assange and WikiLeaks. The WikiLeaks release was, as every sensible person expected, essentially identical to the final version.
Let's remember the TPP context:
* Negotiations were conducted in secret.
* Well, secret from the public, that is. Various big-business interests were at the table and using their participation in the working groups to help shape the final agreement in the way that would promote their profits.
* The fast-track legislation meant that, if the proposal had been sent to Congress for ratification, it would have been rammed through on a preposterously abbreviated schedule. The proponents of the approval bill (the administration and the corporados) would have known of its contents for years and could have their arguments and their political organizing ready. The opponents would have had to start from scratch under a very tight deadline.
In this context, the WikiLeaks release merely leveled the playing field somewhat. Progressives were still largely excluded from the negotiations but at least the analysis of the agreement and the raising of public alarms could begin. The fast-track deadlines were never triggered, because the TPP was never formally submitted to Congress, and it's probable that one reason it wasn't was that the opponents, aided by the WikiLeaks release, had had enough time to develop and present their arguments.
That's the democratic process.
As for this Yellow Peril argument that China will now somehow take over, I personally don't buy it, but TPP proponents are certainly free to press that contention. Assange and WikiLeaks didn't stifle anyone's right of free speech. No one went to prison or is in exile in Russia for providing a leak that helped inform the public debate on a major policy issue -- well, correction, no one suffered such a fate because of WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks doesn't have the power to try to suppress information by going after whistleblowers.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)he did when he assisted Russia in their coup of our democracy, installing their puppet billionaires into the White House and the highest levels of our government.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)and own the country who always owned it. When they think they can get nothing more out of Trump, they'll let him fall and even help take him down. They could do it now. Its not like the GOP isn't on their respective corporate leashes. If they are aiding and abetting Trump, its hardly because they're working for Russia now...its because they've given little shits about this country forever and the purpose is, as it has always been, to help transfer money from the commons to the top 1 percent by whatever means.
But whether wikileaks was carrying Putin's water in this last election has no bearing on the value of other information that wiki-leaks has provided us. I'm not exactly an Assange "fan." Without knowing him, it does seem he has a particular chip on his shoulder when it comes to establishment democrats, although that may be because they've been after his head(somewhat disappointing if not surprising), but I don't have to like the person or the motives to appreciate the information his organization has exposed to us over the years. If the messenger has a vendetta, fine, but I will always be madder at the dems or American organizations when they do dirt that can then hurt them than I will be at the person who exposes it.
Because we have to police our own, and our leaders in Washington need to be accountable to us for their actions. If those actions can be taken with impunity without threat of discovery, I don't think we're better off for it.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)except to our whole Democratic system.
Timothy Syder is a professor of history at Yale.
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/11/a-coup-in-real-time-historian-timothy-snyder-says-the-comey-firing-is-trumps-open-admission-of-collusion-with-russia/
A coup in real time? Historian Timothy Snyder says the Comey firing is Trump’s “open admission of collusion with Russia”
I wrote the first article about Trump and Russia 13 months ago, using Russian sources. The evidence has been overwhelming for a long time. I think it is only our basic desire to cling to some familiar reality that prevented us from seeing all this in 2016. The man shared his political advisers with the Kremlin and Ukrainian oligarchs. Trump owed his success as a developer to mysterious inflows of Russian cash. He won on the Internet thanks in part to Russian trolls, bots, and fake news. Some of that information war ran through Cambridge Analytica, where Steve Bannon was on the board.
Trump’s first foreign policy speech was written by someone on the payroll of a Russian fossil fuels company. Carter Page was also working for the Russians. And that’s not even considering what has come to light about Michael Flynn. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner failed to mention his own Russian contacts to get security clearance. Sessions also lied by omission, perjuring himself to become attorney general, about his Russian contacts. And on and on.
Trump’s whole campaign was an imitation of Putin’s political style, punctuated by pathetic appeals to Putin for friendship. This is what is known through English-language open sources. When you include that Russia has been carrying out operations to derail democracy and support favored candidates elsewhere, the pattern takes shape.
SNIP
JCanete
(5,272 posts)tomorrow or not? Does he actually have the military behind him to ignore such an impeachment? Would he declare martial law with its support, and lock people up? I highly doubt he's even in charge of the White House. He's simply being pulled back and forth because he's weak minded and doesn't really give a fuck about anything but himself.
Yes, I agree though, Russia has undue influence on him, and he has probably committed crimes to the tune of treason.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)on the dangerous situation we're now in. He compares our situation to the rise of Hitler and he said a few months ago that he believed we had one year to avoid the loss of our democracy.
Here it is again:
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/11/a-coup-in-real-time-historian-timothy-snyder-says-the-comey-firing-is-trumps-open-admission-of-collusion-with-russia/
A coup in real time? Historian Timothy Snyder says the Comey firing is Trump’s “open admission of collusion with Russia”
I wrote the first article about Trump and Russia 13 months ago, using Russian sources. The evidence has been overwhelming for a long time. I think it is only our basic desire to cling to some familiar reality that prevented us from seeing all this in 2016. The man shared his political advisers with the Kremlin and Ukrainian oligarchs. Trump owed his success as a developer to mysterious inflows of Russian cash. He won on the Internet thanks in part to Russian trolls, bots, and fake news. Some of that information war ran through Cambridge Analytica, where Steve Bannon was on the board.
Trump’s first foreign policy speech was written by someone on the payroll of a Russian fossil fuels company. Carter Page was also working for the Russians. And that’s not even considering what has come to light about Michael Flynn. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner failed to mention his own Russian contacts to get security clearance. Sessions also lied by omission, perjuring himself to become attorney general, about his Russian contacts. And on and on.
Trump’s whole campaign was an imitation of Putin’s political style, punctuated by pathetic appeals to Putin for friendship. This is what is known through English-language open sources. When you include that Russia has been carrying out operations to derail democracy and support favored candidates elsewhere, the pattern takes shape.
SNIP
JCanete
(5,272 posts)do with it than our own corporations.
Just answer my question. Can Trump do anything without the GOP's consent, given that it has the power to veto, create law with the help of democrats by a 2/3's margin, and ultimately impeach?
The answer is actually no, unless you can convince me that Trump is actually charismatic and powerful enough to have convinced the leaders within the armed forces to help him with an actual coup.
Second question. Does Russia control the GOP or does American and Trans-national big business control the GOP? Can the GOP do anything that is not in the interests of its corporate owners? I'll answer that one too. For the most part no. The problem is that those corporate owners are not themselves patriotic. They could give a shit if they turn our nation into a cess pool. If that happen's they'll pick up and go somewhere nicer. They are entirely divested, and that means, they could care less if Trump is kissing Putin's ass, so long as they are still robbing from the American people.
As soon as he gets in the way of that mission, this honeymoon is over, and you'll see just how much of a coup this is by Putin. If you want to use the looser case for coup...yes this was quite a coup for Putin. Russia IS benefitting. Trump is a fucking idiot who is almost certainly committing treason, whether its provable or not.
But yes, we are constantly in danger of losing our Democracy assuming that's what we still have, and under Trump the risks are particularly high. When you take into account the legitimate and illegitimate distrust in our fourth estate that makes people unwilling to believe anything they hear if it doesn't sit with their world view, the terrifying attacks on net-neutrality, massive voter suppression and hackable elections, the electoral college, and always the big money with its hands on every piece of it--from the media spin to the king-making of our politicians, shit is dire. Its not less dire when Trump is making deals with foreign powers that have a vested interest in totalitarianism, but this is not a coup by Trump and Putin. This is an ongoing coup by people who have generally found real news and real democracy to be an inconvenience.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)as DT is.
Today we just heard Trey Gowdy try to justify the DT team's contacts with Russia by saying that it is common for Russians to contact members of Congress. Oh, really, Trey? Tell us more.
We also know that the Russians hacked not just the DNC but GOP accounts as well. But for some reason they didn't release any hacked GOP emails. Probably because they're holding them back for blackmail.
And what about Russian money in the Superpacs?
So, you're right that DT can't do anything without the consent of the GOP in Congress. But they're as tangled up in this as he is.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)congresspeople are used to being blackmailed, at least implicitly. At some point though, if the interests of their actual bosses run up against the interests of Trump, Putin, whoever, shit's going to go one way or the other. The concern is that all those in power are on the same page, and everybody is fine with moving towards totalitarianism, but again, if that's the case, then it is less Putin, and more the state of our own national politics, and our own corporate interests influencing them.
You are right though, and this is a HUGE, not exactly new, but increasingly worse problem...foreign money influencing our elections and policies via "benign" business deals, sometimes even buying public assets out from under us, and apparently infusing money into super-pacs. I'm also wary, though you may take issue with it, of Middle Eastern Billionaires dropping huge chunks of money into cause oriented institutions like the one created by the Clintons. But to your point, again, the all mighty dollar has been put first and country last, and between foreign interests, and our own corporations that may as well be foreign interests at this point, there is too much control (or at least sway) over our politicians by people who have no vested interest in America and its longevity as a free and thriving state.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)big business, nor should they give businesses power to arrest us or smaller nations permanently with bad environmental or labor practices for fear of lawsuits handled in special international courts, levied by the same corporations that love this shit.
Industrialization by the way, cannot be the only way to make the world a better place. We've put up a false dichotomy of either industrializing third world nations into a sweat-shop development stage of pollution and exploitation, or letting people starve, and what that is really saying is that while we have the means, we don't have the will to actually work towards improving the world, only the will towards lining our pockets with more money. Of course, when I say we here, I mean those who lobby for and write up our policies.
I'm not exactly sure how Assange has anything to do with any of that.
That said, of course the TPP wasn't all bad, and it had provisions that were almost certainly going in the right direction, and it sounds like some basic protections for workers...anti-slavery anti-child-labor etc. are examples of solid improvements. And even on the environment, it is claimed, it has some of the most robust international protections for the environment, particularly it seems, as regards habitats, overfishing etc. Again, cool, but that's not all that hot if those things take a back-seat to other interests, or if there are mechanisms that again, arrest us in other bad policy in order to protect future profits of corporations while our planet continues to boil.
Demsrule86
(68,539 posts)I never agreed with Pres. Obama on trade. I voted for him anyway because he was honest about it ....and the best candidate...I have never been sorry but I am very relieved this agreement is gone...but no matter who was elected it was gone. Hillary did not like the final draft.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)We're still waiting on those "side agreements" that would address labor and environmental concerns. Looking over the original post, I don't see those words anywhere at all. I didn't care for the TPP for the exact same reasons I opposed and continue to oppose NAFTA: The owners get the gold, the workers get the shaft.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)He only released documents that hurt the US and the West -- never Russia.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)If you want something revealed about Russia, get busy.
But it's unlikely to have any real global impact.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)You can't tell me there are NO anti-Putin hackers in Russia or the Ukraine or another country in the former Soviet Union who would love to take him down.
But Assange is a puppet of Putin, so that's not going to happen.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)I think one has to realize that there is a bit of an "opportunity bias" involved here. People within Russia find little useful in leaking information because in an authoritarian government, it has little effect. It is vastly more effective in free countries so that's where the leaks are going to come. Assange was asked multiple times about how he would prevent himself from being used, and he's never really had a good answer.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)and assisting Putin.
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia-ties
After Assange’s brief stint on RT — The World Tomorrow only lasted 12 episodes — links between Assange and Russia kept cropping up. A few notable examples:
Assange claims to have inspired Snowden to flee to Russia: “I thought, and in fact advised Edward Snowden, that he would be safest in Moscow,” he told Democracy Now. A WikiLeaks employee, Sarah Harrison, literally flew with Snowden from Hong Kong (where he had been living) to Moscow.
In order to avoid extradition to Sweden, Assange holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. According to the Ecuadorian publication Focus Ecuador, Assange asked for control over the selection of his bodyguards, and insisted that they be Russian.
Assange used the WikiLeaks Twitter account to attack the 2016 Panama Papers leaks, which disclosed a $2 billion overseas account of Vladimir Putin’s. Assange labeled the leak a US-sponsored plot to undermine Putin and Russia.
SNIP
Assange’s history shows that he is not an impartial arbiter when it comes to Russia and the United States. He is more than willing to carry water for the Russian state, as evidenced by his stint on RT. In the absence of public evidence supporting them, his denials should be given very little weight — he is merely repeating the line set out by his friends in the Kremlin.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)And he's about to find out that Russia is probably done with him too.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)"These incidents don’t prove, as some have alleged, that Assange is some kind of paid Russian agent, or that WikiLeaks is a Russian front organization."
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)but they -- along with substantial other evidence -- prove it to mine.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)
Cha
(297,029 posts)or anyone else.
Hmmm fucking HMMMMMMMM.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)Hekate
(90,616 posts)...the bus. I said this is how we and other nations get to control China's agenda and incursions, but noooo, mean old Obama was pulling a dirty trick on the people of the USA, apparently just like he'd been doing the previous 8 years. Godsdammit to hell.
Now we've got Trump and his oligarchic pals in charge, and they are rapidly cutting us out of our most valuable historic alliances and trade agreements -- in fact, much of what made us strong and great just getting flushed down the crapper by the GOP, and part of what enabled them to get this far was the way the Left was willing to believe the shit doled out by those on the fake-left.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)There was the hope that the agreement would make it harder for China to engage their neighbors, but that was neither obvious, nor guaranteed. Especially if one looked at the effectiveness of other treaties with similar features. Really, even the administration only represented it as the "opportunity" to dominate the region, but it would have involved continued engagement through administrations in 12 different countries for decades to come.
Hekate
(90,616 posts)
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)In my opinion, many on the left got played by the fact that it was so easy to blame trade on the loss of high paying jobs.
But while Democrats were supporting trade deals they were also supporting strong Unions and worker protection across the board. When Reagan started killing Unions in the 80's in formed the perfect storm of job and pay loss.
And we all bought into the notion that service jobs do not pay as much as manufacturing jobs. Of course they do not, they have never been strongly unionized!
Bring back governmental policies that back unions and keep the minimum wage up with inflation and good paying jobs will return.
Demsrule86
(68,539 posts)trade deals profited Wall Street and big business while throwing workers under the bus got played. The TPP allowed slavery. It was a bad deal; most of those sort of agreements are...we can't walk away from them, but the next Democrat should examine and restructure them and enforce the wage and social welfare requirements...and if we continue to support such things, we will lose elections. My hubs worked in autos...there are agreements as to how many cars different countries take...of course Japan and Korea take no American cars and China makes you build them there...Germany was supposed to take so many of the cars hub's company made in a trade agreement...they took half and.... said not taking the rest...Bush II was in office then and even though Germany was not honoring the agreement, he let it slide...this is always the way...we live up to the letter of the law and other countries stab us in the back...thousands of cars built specifically for the German market were scrapped. We are a huge market and are doing to ourselves what England did...they gave away their manufacturing by allowing the corporations to export it to cheaper areas...they lost their empire and can barely feed themselves...there is a reason Brexit went through...the economy is a mess with the safety net in tatters.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)that's GOP congressman and hatchetman Darrel Issa:
https://issa.house.gov/press-releases/2012/05/15/issa-releases-the-trans-pacific-partnership-intellectual-property-rights-chapter-on-keepthewebopencom
It was then leaked repeatedly by everybody's favorite disinfo merchant Jules, right up until October 2015, when the final text, already available online, was "leaked" again:
https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip3/
The chapter is very boring but what everyone latched onto was the inane "analysis" that Jules tacked onto it, with lots of scary stuff about corporate giveaways and secret tribunals, endlessly repeated by the likes of Robert Reich, Public Citizen, the Sanders campaign, and of course Rushbo:
JI7
(89,244 posts)Hekate
(90,616 posts)Great stuff: power point presentations with great big pictures of family trees and org charts so that no one could miss the point. Ugh.
Yavin4
(35,427 posts)If we're going to be pig-headed and stubborn, the world will move on without us.
Hekate
(90,616 posts)....after giving the agreements due consideration (Climate, TPP, Iran) are deciding to proceed into the future without America.
Apparently Barack Obama wrought quite well. I'm glad for the future of the planet, at least, that other countries can see that. Sad for my own country, though.
Yavin4
(35,427 posts)I just ask that they kindly offer us sanctuary when things get really bad here.
alarimer
(16,245 posts)It favored corporations at the expense of workers' rights and the environment, as almost all trade agreements do. I am not opposed to them altogether, but I do believe they need to be fair and they usually are not, at least not for most people. They are useful in the sense that countries with strong trading ties usually don't go to war with each other.
And where did the talking point that trade agreements don't cost jobs come from anyway? I find it an odd coincidence that this talking point arose just in the last year, when Trump was winning on the trade issue. All of a sudden, it's "Trade doesn't cost jobs; automation does." Well, both do in fact, although it's arguable that automation may have cost the country more jobs. To most most people, though, it really doesn't matter to them WHY their job is gone. More insidious, though, is the downward pressure on wages due to trade.
(I just noticed that the blockquote function is not working, so the following four paragraphs are from this article, in case that is not clear)
http://www.epi.org/publication/ib244/
While global integration is usually “win-win” between countries, it can still translate into steep losses for tens of millions of workers in the U.S. economy. Crucially, this wage-loss is not restricted to just workers in sectors exposed to trade, but is experienced by all workers who resemble those displaced by imports in terms of education, skills, and experience. Many of these workers probably do not even know that they are being affected by globalization, but they are. Landscapers may not get displaced by imports, but their wages do indeed suffer from job competition with import-displaced apparel workers.
Take the case of China and the United States. Reducing trade barriers allows each to specialize in what they do more efficiently, and this specialization generally leads to national-level gains for both countries—that is, increased efficiency, worldwide production, and total consumption. This is essentially chapter one in trade textbooks.
However, a later chapter in the textbook points out that, when the United States exports financial services and aircraft while importing apparel and electronics, it is implicitly exchanging the services of capital (physical and human) for labor. This exchange bids up capital’s price (profits and high-end salaries) and bids down wages for the broad working and middle-class, leading to rising inequality and wage pressure for many Americans. In the textbook’s index, this is called the Stolper-Samuelson Theorem. (For those more convinced by appeals to authority, the text box Interpreting Wage Impacts provides some quotes from standard economics texts.)
How big is this impact on wages? A reasonably cautious estimate is that between 1973 and 2006, global integration lowered the wages of U.S. workers without a four-year college degree (the large majority of the U.S. workforce) by 4%. College-educated workers saw 3% gains from trade, so inequality increased in this time as well.
Lil Missy
(17,865 posts)Jimbo101
(776 posts)They wouldn't accept Obama's SCOTUS nominee - but had no problem giving him fast track authority for TPP (bypassing fillibusters) ?
speaks volumes
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/246035-senate-approves-fast-track-sending-trade-bill-to-white-house
