The Trans-Pacific Partnership Legalizes Corporate Rights Prevailing Over Human Rights

[unhappycamper]

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18273-the-trans-pacific-partnership-legalizes-corporate-rights-prevailing-over-human-rights



The Trans-Pacific Partnership Legalizes Corporate Rights Prevailing Over Human Rights
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Friday, 25 October 2013 09:50

Ever since the current juggernaut of "free trade" agreements began to be negotiated under President George Herbert Walker Bush (which resulted in the signing of NAFTA under President Bill Clinton), jobs have been fleeing America as corporations have become engorged with greater profits.

There is simply no disputing this given the prima facie reality of the current configuration of the US economy. Workers in the manufacturing sector have seen their jobs and factories shipped overseas. As a result, they have become unemployed. If they are lucky enough to get a new job, it's most often at a much lower pay with fewer if any benefits. This is not true of all blue collar workers, but it's the accelerating trend.

~snip~

Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) calls what is known of the framework of the secretively negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "a punch in the face to the middle class." Larry Cohen, CWA president, adds that the TPP represents "a race to the bottom and we need a race to the top":

TPP is bad for working families, because, like nearly every other trade agreement that’s been negotiated by the U.S. in the past 20 years, TPP isn’t concerned with U.S. workers or jobs. Every other nation starts out with jobs and the economy as priorities. The U.S. unfortunately has a different focus, and looks at trade in terms of national security and global corporate interests, not ensuring the economic well-being of working families.

[djean111]

1. It is secretive because it is disgusting.

I would imagine almost as much secret effort is being put into how to whitewash and obfuscate and fling rhetorical poo so people don't understand what is happening, and stay in their little pens and corrals.

[CoffeeCat]

2. I did some reading on this horrifying trade agreement....

...and if I'm understanding correctly--any country that signs on will be FINED and PENALIZED if their environmental regulations, labor standards or safety regulations are too strict.

Ok, hello---have you seen the list of countries signing onto this agreement? Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, etc.

So, the United States is supposed to be on par with third-world working conditions?

Of course, Vietnam--a country that pays 14-year-old children 50 cents a day--will find our labor standards just a bit too high, don't you think? Some of these countries barely have any environmental standards.

We're going to be the country on which downward pressure will be forced---on all of our standards that protect working conditions, wages and our environment.

This entire trade agreement seems like a slick way for the globalists to destroy America's labor and environmental laws and turn us into countries that offer horrendously cheap wages--in which global companies don't have to pay to adhere to environmental regulations. Have a pile of poisonous waste? No need to pay money to dispose of it properly. How about that nearby lake!

This is criminal and unconstitutional, in my opinion. And just where in the hell are all of those tea-party ingrates now? They can't stop waving around the Constitution when Obama wants to provide decent healthcare to US citizens (which is not unconstitutional). But when we have America signed onto some international agreement that forces us to adhere to another country's standards--these "patriots" are silent.

The Kochs and the rest of the globalists in the Republican party stand to make billions off of this trade agreement. That is why the tea lemmings don't have their talking points.

[indepat]

3. Legalizing corporate rights over human rights is just one of the joys that accrues with

having a corporatist government.