How much of the TPP actually relates to trade? And how much is a Trojan Horse?
After the defeat of SOPA, PIPA and ACTA, our heads were so full of dangerous dead letter combos that no one was looking for another one. But with partial leaks, and now a semi-congressional rebellion, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, or tiringly — TTP — has come into blurry view.
Threatening corporate dominance over sovereign governments, internet speech restrictions and patent law changes — all under the guise of a trade agreement — this one is just as serious as the others, and twice as secretive.
So secretive, in fact, that we don’t really know what the so-called trade agreement holds in store. According to Lori Wallach from the Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, NAFTA and WTO set the trend for using trade agreements as a backdoor to push through other types of legislation. Originally, bills were actually about “moving physical things you could drop on your foot between countries,” but now they are more like Trojan horses, regulating behind the border and acting as delivery mechanisms for entirely separate agendas often already rejected by Congress and the public.
TPP is one of the new breed of “trade” bills.
What do we know?
1. It’s definitely important
When President Obama announced the goal to create TPP in November 2009, he said that it would “boost our economies, lowering barriers to trade and investment, increasing exports, and creating more jobs for our people, which is my No. 1 priority.”
Read More:http://www.article-3.com/tpp-leads-to-renewed-debate-over-internet-freedoms-98046
