The TPP has to be stopped

From SumOfUs, and I know sum of you are also members.

It's a corporate lobbyist's wildest dream -- a huge global trade deal that would let corporations like Monsanto sue our governments if they passed laws to protect the environment or keep life-saving medicine affordable.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership has to be stopped.

This month, tens of thousands of American SumOfUs members and friends have called Congress to demand it rejects a bill to give President Obama "fast track" authority to sign the TPP -- and support is starting to fall away. But it's not enough.

In the US, corporate lobbyists are pushing hard for Congress to approve. Elsewhere, governments are facing no scrutiny as they get ready to sign away our democratic rights to make laws that protect the public interest. Unless we do more, we may lose this fight.

That's why our community is stepping up. This week, we're getting ready to launch a major effort to stop the TPP in its tracks -- and with your support, we're not going to stop fighting until we've won.

If enough of us can chip in just $1, we can launch the first steps of our campaign and start working together to stop the TPP and save our democracy.

We can't talk about all our plans yet, but we're already looking to:

Target key countries that can stop the TPP -- like Australia and Canada -- and make sure that citizens hear about the TPP before it's too late
Call out consumer companies who have access to the negotiations and are helping write the deal -- rights our elected representatives don't even have -- and demand they come clean on what they know
Organize constituents to contact their representatives -- to make sure the TPP is something that governments have to answer for
Work with lawyers to submit Freedom of Information requests for governments to come clean on the deal
Offer rewards for officials who are willing to do the right thing and let the public know what's in the TPP
Take out advertisements in key national media highlighting the threats the TPP poses to our democracies

The corporations behind the TPP know the public won't like what's in the deal. That's why the full contents are still secret -- only high-level government negotiators and the 600 corporate lobbyists have access.

But we know enough to know that the TPP has to be stopped -- and enough to know how we can stop it with your help.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is called a trade deal, but it is really a corporate wish-list aimed at attacking everything from environmental protections to affordable medicines to internet freedoms. Worst, it gives corporations impunity from governments or citizens that want to reign in their power.

In fact, it is probably the most important international treaty you’ve never heard of. The TPP is being negotiated between the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and other Pacific countries -- making it nearly global in scope.

There's lots wrong with the TPP, but the unaccountable systems it would set up to allow corporations to sue governments are one of the most frightening. If it is signed, future laws designed to protect consumers, our health, and our environment could be overturned in secret courts by corporations that claim the laws harm their profits -- and there is nothing we or our elected governments could do to stop them.



If you would like to help, and I think this is SO important, the link is

http://act.sumofus.org/go/3561?t=2&akid=3848.1305818.Y5DkeG

Similar things being done by the EU.

No similar, the same, it's world wide, that's why they are trying to fight it at source.

Sassy wrote:No similar, the same, it's world wide, that's why they are trying to fight it at source.  

I suggest people in the UK spend at least some of their energy on fighting it at EU level.

sphinx wrote:

Sassy wrote:No similar, the same, it's world wide, that's why they are trying to fight it at source.  

I suggest people in the UK spend at least some of their energy on fighting it at EU level.

Already being done, but where do you take a sucker of a plant off, at the top, or at the base. If they are cut off in the US, the EU part cannot continue.

This really does have to be stopped in it's tracks, or even the tiny bit of democracy that we have left will take to the hills, never to be seen again.

TPP is evil, worse than EU.

Who gets ALL 100% of the benifit from the EU? the TPP is only good for USA lobbyists and corporations.

it is bad for everyone else and it is being forced on us, I wish we didn't have such a cuntsack for a PM at the moment. I think Julia would have fought it.

I think it's quite scarey Veya, all that influence and power and people might not even have know about it.

Yeah, and shame on Obama for trying to fast-track this bullshit. I'm glad some of our Congress members are fighting it, though.

Interesting reading:

Congress is debating whether to give the president the authority to fast-track a massive free trade agreement -- the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- between the U.S., Canada, and 10 nations from the Asia-Pacific region. The nations involved in the talks account for nearly 40 percent of the world's GDP and 26 percent of the world's trade, but weekday evening television news broadcasts have largely ignored the topic.

http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/02/05/study-media-leave-viewers-in-the-dark-about-tra/197932

 

I wouldn't pay  $1  for a donation for ONE very good reason, that many of you may not have yet thought through... 

Mastercard will slap a $1.50 "international processing fee" on top of my transaction ~ and there simply isn't any way 'on God's green Earth' that I will be paying more to one of those very multinational giants for the privilege of donating to worthwhile causes..    

NO ~ in matters such as this I will be donating $5 or $10 ~ on the simple and sensible principle that the donation should be significantly higher than the costs of that transaction !  ::%:: 

veya_victaous wrote:TPP is evil, worse than EU.

Who gets ALL 100% of the benifit from the EU? the TPP is only good for USA lobbyists and corporations.

it is bad for everyone else and it is being forced on us, I wish we didn't have such a cuntsack for a PM at the moment. I think Julia would have fought it.

Seeing as it is only one string the EU is busy trying to inflict on citizens I will continue to battle the EU.

what's the point of fighting it, if they want to do it they will do it..

heavenly father wrote:what's the point of fighting it, if they want to do it they will do it..

What was the point of fighting Hitler?

heavenly father wrote:
what's the point of fighting it, if they want to do it they will do it..

  

"Thin edge of the wedge.."

IF companies such as the likes of Exxon, Coca Cola, NewsCorp', PhilipMorris, JH Holdings, CitiGroup, Pepsi, BAT, Monsanto, Union Carbide (now renamed since their latest "merger"..),  Syngenta, Bayer, Glencore XStrata, Rio Tinto, are all allowed to gain the supreme powers over countries as well as their people, that they are now asking for...    ::rambo:: 


THESE giant multinational corporations want the right to sue any country, state, civil/community association or individuals eho might put ANY laws/legislation/conditions/protests in the eay of them running their "business" ~ including laws that might already be in place to protect the environment, workers pay and condition, control pollution levels, protect the safety of the local communities..

AND they already have in place their "International Courts" to handle these disputes ~ in secret, with anonymous appointments, and where people and nations can't find out anything against the charges, complaints or "breaches" being brought against them ~ until after they have been sued !  

MIGHT sound like a 'conspiracy nut's' wet dream ~ BUT these courts are already in place  !!!
 

Corporations want "the right to be treated the same as individual humans beings !" when it comes to the positive aspects of Human Rights..    BUT they don't want the responsibilities and costs that go along with it !  "Privatise the profits, 'socialise' the costs  !"

ARE you ready to see the last of your democratic, civil, national and human rights signed away on your behalf ~ without having any say in the matter ?    

we have no rights now it's all an illusion we are led like sheep to accept the scraps from the fat cats table.

heavenly father wrote:we have no rights now it's all an illusion we are led like sheep to accept the scraps from the fat cats table.

And you feel that's a good thing?? Why?

I agree it needs to be stopped, but how does a country where its people are divided go about stopping a Government that has been given a free reign to do as they please?

we have no rights now it's all an illusion we are led like sheep to accept the scraps from the fat cats table.

I understand what you are saying. But I don't give up hope that the people of this country will wake up to the fact neither side gives a damn about them, unite and take back those rights. But as it stands atm we as a people are so divided we do not have a prayer.   Seems we have forgotten what we were taught in school.. United we stand Divided we fall.. I am amazed at how simple the division was to master.

Hotwired wrote:I agree it needs to be stopped, but how does a country where its people are divided go about stopping a Government that has been given a free reign to do as they please?

we have no rights now it's all an illusion we are led like sheep to accept the scraps from the fat cats table.

I understand what you are saying. But I don't give up hope that the people of this country will wake up to the fact neither side gives a damn about them, unite and take back those rights. But as it stands atm we as a people are so divided we do not have a prayer.   Seems we have forgotten what we were taught in school.. United we stand Divided we fall.. I am amazed at how simple the division was to master.

People are just too easy to manipulate. How many people think Obamacare includes death panels? How many people think Bush ordered the 9/11 attacks?

Most people would rather stagger through life guided by a handful of prejudices and rules of thumb than use their brains for anything besides their most immediate situations.

Then again, I may be unduly cynical.

People are just too easy to manipulate.

I don't know if it is manipulation or they are so hell bent on their side being correct they are blind to what is going on around them. But then on the other hand, many people are easy to manipulate. Either way H Father is correct we are loosing our rights so fast we don't even realize they are gone. They are disguised as something good and needed.

Hotwired wrote:

People are just too easy to manipulate.

I don't know if it is manipulation or they are so hell bent on their side being correct they are blind to what is going on around them.  But then on the other hand, many people are easy to manipulate. Either way H Father is correct we are loosing our rights so fast we don't even realize they are gone. They are disguised as something good and needed.

Good point -- way too many people are so caught up in defending their side or their opinions that it becomes a matter of saving face when their side or their opinions are challenged. Bummer.