General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Pres. Obama tells Dems, on TTP: "Get informed, not by reading the Huffington Post" [View all]bigtree
(85,987 posts)...you choose to follow President Obama's lead on this issue, but he not the only political leader in the Democratic party (and in our caucus). Many of our political leaders have questioned the trade pact and the 'fast-track' authority the President is asking Congress to revive for this treaty.
It's remarkable how you can come to this thread and suggest opposition to this trade pact is based on some sort of popularity cult while, apparently, your own unfaltering support of President Obama should be seen as infallible and sincere.
I can only conclude that your claim that opposition to the TTP is 'based on no evidence whatsoever' is a result of your own unwillingness to take into account any view other than the administration's. I would remind you that issues which relate to our nation's economic well-being are as much the responsibility and under the authority of our Senators and Representatives as they are the Executive. In understanding that, and in light of the dearth of public knowledge of the final details of this trade pact (as you admit) being offered by the president or his administration, it has become increasingly necessary to look to our legislators for that information and guidance.
More than 150 Democrats in the House of Representatives have signed letters to the U.S. chief negotiators expressing opposition to a "fast track" procedure for voting on the proposed agreement.
Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research in Washington DC. summarizes the most prominent source of information which has been revealed about the actual content of the trade proposal (the source cited by Sen. Sanders in his letter in the op and confirmed by others in Congress, as well, who have had limited access to the contents) :
____It is quite amazing that a treaty like the TPP can still be promoted as a "free trade" agreement when its most economically important provisions are the exact opposite of "free trade" the expansion of protectionism.
Exhibit A was released by WikiLeaks: the latest draft of the "intellectual property" chapter of the agreement, one of 24 (out of 29) chapters that do not have to do with trade. This chapter has provisions that will make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to get patents, including in developing countries; have these patents for more years; and extend the ability of these companies to limit access to the scientific data that is necessary for other researchers to develop new medicines. And the United States is even pushing for provisions that would allow surgical procedures to be patented provisions that may be currently against US law.
All of these measures will help raise the price of medicines and health care, which will strain public health systems and price some people out of the market for important medicines. It is interesting to see how much worse the TPP is than the WTO's Trips (Trade-Related Aspects of International Property Rights). This, too, was a massive rip-off of consumers and patients throughout the world, but after years of struggle by health advocates and public interest groups, some of its worst features were attenuated, and further consolidation of pharmaceutical companies' interests were blocked.
In case you were wondering why we had to get this information from WikiLeaks, it's because the draft negotiating texts are kept secret from the public. Even members of the US Congress and their staff have extremely limited access. Thus the much-maligned WikiLeaks has once again proven how valuable and justified are their efforts to bring transparency to important policy-making that is done in the darkness whether it is "collateral murder", or other forms of life-threatening unaccountability.
One part of the TPP that shows why negotiators want to minimize public awareness of the agreement consists of provisions giving corporations the right as is the case under the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) to directly sue governments for regulations that infringe upon their profits or potential profits. This, too, is much worse than the WTO, where a corporation has to convince its government to file a case against another government. These private enforcement actions which if won collect from the defendant government are judged by special tribunals outside of either country's judicial system, without the kinds of due process or openness that exists, for example, in the US legal system. A currently infamous example is the action by Lone Pine Resources, a Delaware-incorporated company, against the government of Quebec for its moratorium on fracking.
Perhaps less known than its other failings, the TPP doesn't even offer any economic gains for the majority of Americans who are being asked to sacrifice their constitutional rights. The gains from increased trade turn out to be so small that they are equivalent to a rounding error in the measurement of our GDP. The study most touted by proponents of the agreement, published by the Peterson Institute of International Economics, shows a cumulative increase of 0.13% of GDP by 2025. This would be trivial in any case; but the worse news is that, taking into account some of the unequalizing effects of the agreement these treaties tend to redistribute income upwards a Centre for Economic and Policy Research study showed that most Americans will actually lose because of the TPP.
I really don't expect you to read this with any interest in understanding or accepting the information provided. I post this here as a hedge against this attempt by you (and others) to ridicule those of us who have expressed opposition to this treaty and the un-democratic manner in which it is being negotiated, and the expectation by the administration that they should merely vote up or down on a signed, done deal.
As you should well know, trust-based advocacy in political affairs amounts to nothing more than capitulation. Activism for the issues, interests, and concerns that we believe in requires that we begin with our unflagging demands, with the expectation and insistence that our elected officials in Congress and the White House respond directly. None of these political expectations will be well-served if the substance of our advocacy is merely comprised of a compliant thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.
We have enough knowledge of how these trade deals work to, at the very least, put our demands at the outset of our advocacy. We have enough knowledge of our own interests and concerns to place those at the head of our advocacy and activism. We have right now, at least, a cursory understanding of the contents of this trade pact to demand that our interests and concerns are represented and addressed in the final bill.
Those who suggest we 'wait' to see the final trade pact before criticizing it ignore or disregard the aim of the administration to ram it through Congress without amendments and with limited debate. As legislators like Sen. Sanders and others have remarked, corporate interests and representatives have already had access to the process of crafting the treaty; not so with our elected officials who are expected by the administration to line up behind an already signed agreement without any real input at all.
What we need right now to counter that corporate access and effort is real and present activism. Belittling those who are attempting that effort is as antithetical to the process of democracy as this autocratic exercise of Executive power the President is engaged in. The American people (including those who have expressed their concerns on this message board) deserve better.
related:
WikiLeaks Exposes What Obama's Secret Trade Deal Would Do To The Environment (pdf)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/15/tpp-environment_n_4602727.html
WikiLeaks released the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter (updated)
https://wikileaks.org/tpp/