Plutocracy’s Chief Puppet Is Reportedly Trying to Slide the Job Killing Trans-Pacific Partnership Past Us — by Closing the Congressional Session(s) that Are Slated to Pass Judgment on It

24 March 2015

Barack Obama is reportedly trying to pull another fast one on ordinary Americans

As Jim Hightower put it — regarding the Obama Administration’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership:

The real deal is in the 24 other chapters that create a supranational scheme of secretive tribunals that corporations from any TPP nation can use to challenge and overturn our local, state, and national laws. All a corporate power has to do to win in these closed tribunal proceedings is to show that any particular law or regulation might reduce its future profits.

This enthrones a global corporate oligarchy over us, yet it’s been negotiated by the 12 countries in strict secrecy.

Even members of Congress have been shut out – but some 500 corporate executives have been allowed inside to shape the “partnership.”

Now that Obama and his corporate team ready are to ram it through Congress, he arranged a briefing to woo House Democrats. But he classified it as a secret session, meaning the lawmakers can’t tell the people anything they learn.

The problem

Wikipedia explains the controversial aspects of the trade agreement, here. Scroll down to the section entitled, Controversy.

Public Citizen says:

Foreign corporations would be empowered to bypass domestic courts and directly "sue" the U.S. government before a tribunal of private lawyers that sits outside of any domestic legal system. These lawyers would be authorized to order the U.S. government to hand millions of our tax dollars to the corporations for laws that they find inconvenient.

How could foreign corporations attack domestic health, environmental and financial protections that local companies have to follow? The TPP would give foreign firms special privileges, including the ability to challenge new policies – from Wall Street regulations to climate change protections – because they frustrated the corporations' "expectations."

The TPP would also grant these privileges to U.S. firms that offshore American jobs. The deal's special protections for foreign corporations would eliminate many of the usual risks that make firms think twice about moving to low-wage countries, incentivizing a new wave of offshoring.

Since the TPP negotiations are secret, I cannot know whether these criticisms are completely accurate

But I do know, based on my legal career, that private entities’ rights to overcome laws and government regulations that hinder them are parts of previous trade and intellectual property agreements.

These end runs of national sovereignty often work to disadvantage ordinary workers. The public does not know much about all this because trade proceedings are complicated and intentionally concealed. Since America is run by oligarchs, it behooves them and Congress to keep the daggers that slice us secret.

The moral? — No benefit of the doubt for the President on this one

President Obama has repeatedly proven himself to be just as economically bad as 2012 candidate Mitt Romney might have been and almost certainly less transparent.

I would rather have a straightforward villain at the (figurehead) helm than a self-camouflaged conniver.

PeteFree.com

Plutocracy’s Chief Puppet Is Reportedly Trying to Slide the Job Killing Trans-Pacific Partnership Past Us — by Closing the Congressional Session(s) that Are Slated to Pass Judgment on It