Ahead of Transatlantic and Transpacific trade deals: ‘Remember NAFTA’.
The legacy of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), twenty years after implementation, is one of environmental degradation and corporate dominance, according to a report.
(RMALC), the Institute for Policy Studies, and the Council of Canadians.
According to the study, the environmental legacy of the trade pact is both widespread and varied. From fueling the proliferation of Genetically Modified (GM) agriculture in Mexico to encouraging the development of Alberta tar sands, the results have been a disaster for people and the environment.
Perhaps hardest hit is Mexico, according to the report, where expanded trade in agricultural products came at the expense of smaller farmers, who couldn’t compete with a surge in pesticide-heavy factory farms. Small farmers resorted to cutting down forests to farm more land, and still failed. A boom in mining came at the expense of local landowners, with subsequent industrial pollution.
In Canada, while the improved access to markets meant that exports to the U.S. soared by more than 200 percent from 1994 to 2008, wages stagnated. In the petroleum industry, Canada was contracted to continue shipping a certain amount of oil to the U.S., encouraging development of the high-cost tar sands in Alberta at the expense of alternative energy.
“These are not unfortunate side-effects, but rather the inevitable results of a model of trade that favors corporate profits over the interests of communities and the environment.”
Perhaps the “most harmful components” of the agreement are the “vaguely worded” investment provisions that guarantee the right to claim damages when the value of an investment has been reduced, empowering multinational corporations to challenge any government environmental initiative in private trade tribunals.
In the TPP the U.S. government is proposing to extend intellectual property rights to corporate patents on plant and animal life, including genetically modified organisms. These rights would be expressly recognized as a covered investment in the investment chapter, giving patent owners the right to sue countries that did not recognize (or want to import) their GM products.
It continues:
U.S. chemicals and agricultural lobbies hope that the TTIP will weaken toxic chemicals regulation in Europe, and possibly require EU countries to recognize hormones and antibiotics used in North American meat production as safe for human consumption.
The groups behind the new report urge government officials now considering the new deals to take NAFTA’s deplorable legacy into account as trade talks continue, but so far remain skeptical that the most important lessons have been learned.
“If only NAFTA countries could learn from the fiasco, but they are busy signing more NAFTA-like deals around the world, further taking away our ability to protect the environment and merely crossing their fingers that our ecosystems can sustain all this new growth,”said A. Villamar, trade policy analyst with RMALC, on the anniversary of the agreement.
The Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC) is a citizens’ coalition of unions, peasant and indigenous organizations, environmental groups, NGOs and researchers whose mission is to do research and advocate for justice on economic policy and trade issues in Mexico and globally. RMALC was created in 1991, at the juncture of the negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and is a founding member of the Hemispheric Social Alliance and other regional and global networks.
Many believe our membership in the World Trade Organization(WTO) is unconstitutional and that it violates Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that Congress shall have the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations….”Under our Constitution [if you actually believe we have one], Congress may not hand over these powers to the WTO or any other domestic or foreign organization. Following this same line of thought, we should immediately withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and all other so-called free-trade agreements. They are flawed agreements that do nothing but support the offshoring and outsourcing that enriches multinational corporations and first-world capitalists while destroying the U.S. economy.
In 1993, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was sold to the American public with grand promises. NAFTA would create tens of thousands of good jobs here. U.S. farmers would export their way to wealth. NAFTA would bring Mexico’s standard of living up, providing new economic opportunities there that would reduce immigration to the United States. Unfortunately, all bets are off. NAFTA is just another ruse in the ongoing violations enacted by the POTUS and Congress. The US has been SOLD and traded to the highest bidder.
NAFTA has been an experiment, establishing a radically new “trade” agreement model. It exploded the boundaries of past trade pacts, which had focused narrowly on cutting tariffs and quotas. In contrast, NAFTA contained chapters that created new privileges and protections for foreign investors; required the three countries to waive domestic procurement preferences, such as Buy American; limited regulation of services, such as trucking and banking; extended medicine patent monopolies and limited food and product safety standards and border inspection.
After twenty years of NAFTA, we can measure its actual outcomes. The grand promises made by proponents remain unfulfilled. Many outcomes are exactly the opposite of what was promised. Many U.S. firms used the new investor protections to relocate production to Mexico to take advantage of its low wages and weak environmental standards and to attack NAFTA countries’ environmental and health laws in foreign tribunals. Over $340 million in compensation to investors has been extracted from NAFTA governments via these “investor-state” challenges.
The US Trade agreements crafted by investor-class plutocrats that we continue to send to “represent” us continue to make money for them while destroying the middle and working classes of the US and the countries with whom they make these trade agreements.
Congress blathers on about debt and the deficit, but we don’t hear them talking about TRADE deficits, do we? They are all such liars–from both sides of the aisle. It is mind-boggling! Last year’s federal budget deficitwas 12 percent lower than in 2009, according to the Office of Management and Budget.The deficit is projected to shrinkeven more over the next several years and this is even if the do-nothings do nothing.
NAFTA is among the worst of the worst of these trade agreements. In 1993, the United States had a net export deficit with its NAFTA partners of $18.2 billion (all figures in inflation- adjusted 1987 dollars). From 1993 to 1998, this deficit increased by 160% to $47.3 billion, resulting in job losses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Under Obama we have the Korean Trade Agreement–another one-side trade agreement for the American people that will ship no less than 169,000 jobs out of the USA and will increase the trade deficit by $16 billion dollars. All members of Congress had this report from the Congressional Budget Office BEFORE they voted on the trade agreement.
THEY KNEW THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE KOREAN TRADE AGREEMENT AND THEY STILL VOTED FOR IT–WHY? BECAUSE PERSONALLY, AS WALL STREET INVESTORS, THEY MAKE MONEY OFF THESE TRADE AGREEMENTS. WAKE UP FOLKS! STOP SENDING THESE PEOPLE TO REPRESENT YOU.
THEY DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOU OR “DEMOCRACY” OR THE MIDDLE AND WORKING CLASS.
The U.S. government argues that it needs the “flexibility” of different foreign policy tools to maneuver successfully in this increasingly complex global society.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is working to complete the development of core trade processing capabilities in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) and decommission corresponding capabilities in the legacy systems by the end of 2016. CBP has posted the ACE Development and Deployment Schedule to CBP.gov which details the deployment of new features in ACE. New features will be spread across 7 Deployments (A-G), which began in the fall of 2013 (Deployment A), and will culminate in the summer of 2016 (Deployment G).
In order to deliver useful capabilities to stakeholders earlier, CBP has broken down the capabilities in Deployment D into three releases: July 12 and October 18, 2014; and January 3, 2015.
Who is impacted by the July 12th Deployment?
Filers Software Developers Unified Filing of Cargo Release and Importer Security Filing (ISF) Data Entry Summary System Validations
What are the impacts of the July 12th Deployment?
Unified Filing of Cargo Release/ISF Data: With this release, ACE will allow for submission of ISF data together with Cargo Release/Entry data on the same record. Only 6 shipment types will be allowed in conjunction with ACE Cargo Release; anything outside the below shipment types will need to be filed as a stand-alone ISF transaction:
Standard or regular filings
To Order Shipments
Military, Government
U.S. Goods Returned
International Mail Shipments
Outer Continental Shelf Shipments
This capability will be initially launched through expansion of the existing ACE Cargo Release Pilot Ports | U.S. Customs and Border. After successful completion of initial processing, this capability will be expanded to additional eligible ocean filers. ( If you are an interested ocean filer, please contact your assigned Client Representative or call 571-468-5500.)
With the combined data submission, ACE will return notifications to the filer for the Entry and ISF submission. If either is rejected, it will be handled individually, and will not result in an automatic rejection of the other. Please ensure your software packages are updated and in compliance with ACE interface standards. The Cargo Release CATAIR Chapter is available on CBP.gov/ACE.
System Validations for Entry Summaries: With the July release, CBP has enabled additional entry summary system validations. Users will see new system error messages related to processing of validations for the following:
Informal Entry Restrictions
Charges Restrictions
Taxes
Other Fees
KEY DATES
Reminder, our 3 mandatory dates are on the horizon. May 1, 2015 Mandated use of ACE for all electronic manifest filings. November 1, 2015 Mandated use of electronic Cargo Release and associated Entry Summary filings. October 1, 2016 Mandated use of ACE for all remaining electronic portions of the CBP cargo process. 10 Months To Go as of July 2014! 16 Months To Go as of July 2014! 27 Months To Go as of July 2014!
The July 12, 2014 deployment will allow for submission of Importer Security Filing (ISF) data together with Cargo Release/Entry data on the same record. Only 6 shipment types will be allowed in conjunction with ACE Cargo Release; anything outside the below shipment types will need to be filed as a stand-alone ISF transaction:
• Standard or regular filings
• To Order Shipments
• Military, Government
• U.S. Goods Returned
• International Mail Shipments
• Outer Continental Shelf Shipments
This capability will be initially launched through expansion of the existing ACE Cargo Release pilot. After successful completion of initial processing, this capability will be expanded to additional eligible ocean filers.
The Government of the Republic we believe that transparency and access to information play a vital role in building governments more open to public scrutiny, able to promote increased participation of civil society in the design and evaluation of policies governmental public and therefore greater public accountability.
Therefore, the transparency policy of the Government of the Republic aims not only to guarantee the right of access to information of Mexicans, but also to provide timely information to improve decision making by citizens and improve confidence and certainty regarding government action.
In this section you will find basic information about the transparency policy of the Government of the Republic, its objectives, scope, the main results of its implementation, and the challenges that still lie ahead.
19 U.S. Code Chapter 21 – NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE
For the past year or more, Stand Up America has been working with some crack researchers, witnesses, and inside sources who have uncovered an insidious, and un-Constitutional plot, likely more than one. Some might say treasonous, but that is for you to decide. The research, now ready for dissemination, will be doled out on our National Call to Action Project, as Project #6. The launch of these actions was initiated on January 29th, 2011 at a gala event hosted in Temecula, California.
This project, will show, that when you pull back the curtain, its not the Wizard of Oz who is exposed, but a series of administrations who, under the guise of the North American Free Trade Act, have eroded the sovereignty of “We the people” as a nation, and our way of life. Its just another, in a long line of a “new world order” actions that continues to erode our nation, and is clearly a detriment to our way of life; one so revered by peace loving, free peoples of the world. It is truly an assault, and like so much activity in Washington, D.C., is another example of pretty words used to mislead you, lie to you, and cajole you into sacrificing your nation, one small piece at a time.
It is the artifice of the manipulator, the charm of the snake-oil salesman, and the Realtor selling swamp-land in Florida, or the Brooklyn Bridge. Its a Ponzi scheme of epic proportion, a spider web of infinite branches, and a world-class, a-one, enigma inside a puzzle that will be our demise. Please take the time to read what these folks have discovered for you, the American citizen in her opening statement below:
U.S. Territory as a Land Bridge Between Two Bodies of Water
National Sovereignty Decline Summary Brief
There are several foreign policy initiatives combined with domestic law that are enabling the United States to become occupied territory that will be controlled by a foreign entity. For that reason and more, I believe that high crimes and misdemeanors have been committed and that public assets have been criminally converted for private profit under the color of law. If the agenda is so far along that high crimes and misdemeanors no longer applies, then the crimes committed would be Acts of Piracy.
The “Free Trade Area of the Americas” is intended to dissolve the nation and to bury the evidence.
In order to keep this brief, only a sketch of the strategy is being included along with a letter written by Idaho Governor Butch Otter’s office in response to a citizen letter of inquiry and a recent U.S. State Department press release regarding annotated B-1 visas for foreign maritime workers to allow them to get Transportation Department ID’s.
Establishment of the Beachhead
The establishment of the foreign bases of operation occurs over a period of years gradually building the structural foundation.
• Authorization in state law for Foreign–Trade Zones
• The establishment of a multi-jurisdictional layer of “governance” for the purposes of regional planning and zoning (metropolitan area). Collaboration in the following areas
1 – Transportation
2 – Parks, open space and trails
3 – Water supply and quality
4 – Air quality
5 – Public safety
6 – Storm water drainage
7 – Drug abuse prevention
8 – Emergency management and disaster preparedness
• Authorization in state law for a new political subdivision centered on transportation hubs. When it’s on a navigable body of water, it’s called a Port District. When it is inland, it is called an Intermodal Commerce Zones.
• Definition of the airport as a port of entry – and then a customs port of entry
• Building the data center that becomes the central command and control facility
• Economic Cluster report to identify the major employers in the area plus their supply chains. The major employers then become the “anchors” in the Intermodal/Port Districts.
• A “Technology Park” is then established which is presented to the public as an economic development/work-based learning zone. It is an intermodal commerce zone and will become a subzone of a Foreign Trade Zone. It is connected with one or more universities so that it can be classified as a Research and Development zone and they get federal grant money, tax subsidies.
• Designation of an EB-5 regional center. EB-5 visas are the sale of American citizenship. The EB-5 costs between $500k and $1M. The money from these visas then goes to towards the development of the “Technology Park” and small business incubator system. The small businesses that are spawned from this system are the installers of the technology for command and control of our critical infrastructure – and the training facilities for jobs at the major employers who are engaged in this system.
Implementation of Zone Management – “Port Security”
• Open a Foreign Trade Zone – this “internationalizes” the port
• Establish an intermodal commerce zone and EB-5 Regional Center
• Cluster Study and selection of anchors, set up university connections for “work-based training programs” and “small business” incubator for control system and surveillance equipment installation
• Designate the intermodal commerce zone (Port District – Inland or Water) as a subzone of the FTZ
• Use EB-5 money to development the zone for the purpose of zone management
• Implement the Fusion Center – Command and Control – not only of the zone, but of the entire area.
• Import Foreign workers and train students to man the control systems of the zones and to eventually become the occupiers once enough of them have been imported to take over. Fusion Center as “Port Security”
Notes
• The Immigration Act of 1990 (PL 101-649) radically changed the lawful levels of immigration to this country. It defined a myriad of categories of visas to distribute the massive, annual increases in population across economic and social sectors. This legislation has special provisions for foreign investor ‘Employment Creation’:
(B) SET-ASIDE FOR TARGETTED EMPLOYMENT AREAS–
(i) IN GENERAL– Not less than 3,000 of the visas made available under this paragraph in each fiscal year shall be reserved for qualified immigrants who establish a new commercial enterprise described in subparagraph (A) which will create employment in a targetted employment area.
(ii) TARGETTED EMPLOYMENT AREA DEFINED– In this paragraph, the term targetted employment area’ means, at the time of the investment, a rural area or an area which has experienced high unemployment (of at least 150 percent of the national average rate).
(iii) RURAL AREA DEFINED– In this paragraph, the term `rural area’ means any area other than an area within a metropolitan
statistical area or within the outer boundary of any city or town having a population of 20,000 or more (based on the most recent decennial census of the United States).
• In 1991, the High Performance Computing Act making the nation’s telecommunications system available for open access by the public and business. (Internet) Also in 1991, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) was passed. This legislation defined a new paradigm in transportation—an ‘Intelligent Vehicle Highway System’ built around the concept of intermodalism (transportation hubs); it defined the first international, border-to-border Corridor, The CANAMEX. It also provided funding for university-based “research” centers for transportation planning and smart highway and vehicle technology research and development. The ISTEA legislation changed the law to allow the Interstate highway system to become toll roads.
• In 1993, Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA Chapter 11 has ‘multinational investor rights’ provisions that allow foreign corporations to claim prospective damages if they are prevented from doing business in our country if U.S. or state law prohibits any aspect of their business. This provision is a “blackmail government” tool. Either change your laws or pay us the amount of money we figure we’ll lose by the prohibition.
Bill Clinton remarks on the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement 1993
• In 1994, the Uruguay Round of GATT was completed resulting in the Marrakesh Agreement. The Marrakesh Agreement created the World Trade Organization. One of the provisions in that agreement was ‘Trade in Services’ with four modes of Services defined: “The GATTS distinguishes between four modes of supplying services: cross-border trade, consumption abroad, commercial presence, and presence of natural persons”.
Apparently there is no prohibition against foreign governments masquerading as corporations to use both the NAFTA and WTO provisions to force their way into our country, breaking down our laws and then flooding it with their excess populations under the ruse of providing “services”. Our domestic economy has been flooded with cheap imports to drive American business out.
There is also nothing to prohibit foreign governments from providing a government operative with the money to buy American citizenship using theEB–5 Visa; nor is there anything to prevent a foreign government from training an army of industrial spies and subversives to enter the country using the hundreds of thousands of visas issued every year since 1990.
The WikiLeaks document exposes a secret U.S. diplomatic cable written over six years ago, confirming that a hidden agenda to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into an integrated North American Union has been secretly going on for years.
Once again corporate media and establishment heads have been made to look like liars and conspirators, with Wikileaks putting lawmakers into the hotseat once again with leaked documents, after Washington had claimed that the North American Union (NAU) was a baseless “conspiracy theory,” when it actually was a real conspiracy.
“The cable, released through the WikiLeaks website and apparently written Jan. 28, 2005, discusses some of the obstacles surrounding the merger of the economies of Canada, the United States and Mexico in a fashion similar to the European Union.
An incremental and pragmatic package of tasks for a new North American Initiative (NAI) will likely gain the most support among Canadian policymakers,” the document said. “The economic payoff of the prospective North American initiative … is available, but its size and timing are unpredictable, so it should not be oversold.”
The Wikileaks cable is no surprise to those who watched the documentary Endgame, in which precisely the same information was outlined, with special focus on the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP meetings.
In September 2006 the mission to create a North American Union was also discussed during a closed-door meeting of high-level government and business leaders in Banff, Canada.
During the 2008 presidential election the establishment media attempted to smear Ron Paul by attributing the notion of a move towards a North American Union to him and then claiming it was a non-existent “conspiracy theory,” despite the existence of documents proving the facts from the very beginning.
Although the leaked cable states U.S. diplomats were busy discussing a “move forward with continental integration, including a possible common currency, labour markets, international trade and the borders of the three countries,”as well as “easier access across the U.S. border,” more than six years ago, a Newsweek piece subsequently claimed that Ron Paul’s concerns over a NAFTA superhighway, a North American Union or a regional currency were completely baseless.
Watch the documentary Endgame clip bellow, in which the agenda behind the North American Union was exposed back in 2006, even as mainstream media still assured America it was just a “conspiracy theory,” and not to worry.
The European Union was put into place incrementally over fifty years, not by the citizens of the member states, but by the efforts of an intellectual elite who disguised their ultimate goal of a regional government. Today, a bloated, unelected bureaucracy rules over hundreds of millions of people—people who have no say over the EU’s actions…or their own futures. Think it could never happen here? It already has.The Security and Prosperity Partnership —announced in 2005 by the leaders of Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, but never presented to Congress for approval—is already laying the groundwork for the merger of the three nations into a North American Union.
This was the post-debate discussion on Nov 28, 2007 just after the CNN youtube republican debate. Jeffrey Toobin is trying to smear Ron Paul by saying that the NAFTA superhighway is the figment of Ron Paul’s imagination. The conversation started as a discussion about Mike Huckabee’s suggestion that the IRS should be abolished. (sound familiar?) Hear what Paul actually said about the NAFTA superhighway in the second part of the clip.
A digital archive of C–SPAN videoEuropean Parliament members debated a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and the U.S. Members from Germany, France, Spain and other European countries expressed some concerns, citing differences with the U.S. in agriculture and environmental policies,intellectual property and Europe’s film and television industry.
When Dr. Ron Paul talks about the NAFTA Super Highway.
This is the Tool (Agenda 21) they use for it and much, much more. They implement it at all the local level of government. This is no joke people. This Is Real! So, to Stop this we must get involved in your local government again. We must become involved in all levels of government again. “We CAN No Longer Elect People And Believe They Will Have Our Best Interest At Heart”. The people running Agenda 21 don’t live in America.
NAFTA was a major step toward an EU-style North American Union; but grassroots pushback has caused elitists to shift strategy to Pacific Rim and European partnerships. Read more
While a full-blown North American Union (NAU) analogous to the up-and-running European Union may still be a distant dream for internationalists, in one sense, at least, union among the United States, Canada, and Mexico is already much closer to re … Read more
U.S. senators have come to a “bipartisan agreement” to allow comprehensive immigration reform — amnesty. But the price of amnesty literally could mean the end of the country. Read more
Even as the European Union continues to pursue ever-closer “integration” in the name of “global governance,” Obama is now working to form a “Trans-Atlantic partnership” between the U.S. government and the EU under the guise of a so-cal … Read more
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative held a press briefing by U.S. chief negotiator Dan Mullaney and EU chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero at the closing of the third Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiating round.
On June 12, a leaked copy of the investment chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was made public. This copy was analyzed by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and has been verified as authentic. This agreement has been negotiated IN SECRET for 2-1/2 years and no information has ever been released until this leak. So why have the details of this negotiation been so secret? This agreement has been framed as a “free trade” agreement and yet out of 26 chapters only two have anything to do with trade. The other 24 chapters grant new corporate privileges and rights, while limiting governments and protective regulations.
If implemented, this agreement will hard code corporate dominance over sovereign governments into international law that will supersede any federal, state, or local laws of any member country. This document alone should set alarm bells ringing, but if one steps back and looks at the larger picture, the future ramifications look even more ominous. After completing this reading, see what your conclusions are.
This video is a must see for anyone who wishes to more fully understand the implications of this secretly negotiated agreement. This article will also show how if this agreement is considered in the context of other recently passed legislation and developments, and the “dots are connected”, the results would be total corporate global governance with an accompanying police state. In this new system the role of elected governments would be to serve as subservient agents for the transnational corporations, while the armies, police, and courts would serve the interests of these transnational corporations. The status of the member states would be locked-in, similar to countries once they are inside the eurozone.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being negotiated by some of the same characters that brought us NAFTA, CAFTAand other so called free trade agreements. Some of the provisions in this document include the establishment of a parallel system of justice to be administered by 3 attorneys with no conflict of interest limitations. This 3 attorney tribunal could orderSovereign Governmentsto use taxpayer money to pay these transnational corporations for any environmental or regulatory costs that these corporations expended to meet local standards. Many existing laws would need to be rewritten and no new regulatory laws could be passed.
Governments that tried to pass regulations such as limits on the financial industry using risky bets such as derivatives would have the burden of proof to defend such regulations in a court system controlled by the corporations. The taxpayers would pay should a corporation prevail in one of these “private courts”. In fact over $350 million of taxpayer money has already been paid out to corporations under the NAFTA style deals, because of zoning laws, toxic bans, timber rules and other regulations. This TPP agreement is like NAFTA on steroids. This corporate tribunal bears a resemblance to the private US Supreme Court approved binding arbitration that corporations use to severely limit an individual’s or a group’s right to sue for damages. With binding arbitration we essentially have a “Private Corporate Court System” outside of any government judicial system where the corporations choose the arbitrators and pay for their services. This creates an apparent conflict of interest because the arbitrators know that if they do not rule favorably to the corporations in the majority of cases, they will not be hired back.
The kangaroo courts setup by this TPP agreement will have binding corporate guarantees with both trade and cash sanctions. These cash sanctions would effectively transfer taxpayer money to transnational corporate coffers. Can you imagine the excesses we will see in the financial industry as they challenge regulations within their own private court system forcing governments to pay or eliminate them? The result of these corporate tribunals will be to setup a race to the bottom, where if one country chooses not to regulate something, then the corporations would be able to sue the other nations inside of the TPP to have taxpayers cover their losses for any such regulations. These other countries would be vulnerable to corporate led lawsuits to be decided in the corporate tribunals.
So how could such an extreme agreement that literally gives corporations everything they could possibly want have been negotiated with little or no resistance? The answer is that the ONLY way this agreement could ever pass is if everything is done in secret and the details never see the light of day. Lori Wallach, the director of Global Trade Watch – Public Citizen recently said:
“These agreements are a little bit like Dracula. You drag them in the sunshine, and they do not fare well. But all of us, and also across all of the countries involved, there are citizen movements that are basically saying that this is not in our name. We don’t need global enforceable corporate rights. We need more democracy. We need more accountability.”
These talks have been so secret that Senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the Trade Committee in the Senate which has jurisdiction over trade agreements has been denied any access to information on the negotiations for over 2-1/2 years. This is a man who is on the Intelligence Committee and has access to nuclear secrets, yet he cannot see this TPP agreement? On the Democratic side, Senator Wyden has introduced legislation to force the Obama administration to make the details of these secret negotiations available to the Senate Committee.
On the Republican side, Representative Darryl Issa has also questioned the Obama administration’s extreme levels of secrecy on this agreement. This is not a liberal cause, this is not a conservative cause, this is a common cause. It is vital that the public be aware of this TPP agreement because BOTH of the 2012 presidential candidates are supporting this agreement. Since TPP was negotiated under the watch of the Obama administration, and Mitt Romney has indicated that he wants to quickly complete negotiations of this bill, the results of the next election will be irrelevant to the future status of this bill.
With the corporate takeover of sovereign governments, we see the very essence of a global fascist system. When most people think of fascism, they think of Hitler brown shirts marching through the streets, however, that is not the real definition of fascism. Fascism was defined by President Franklin Roosevelt:
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group”
Polls show that most Americans from both major political party believe that money exerts far too much influence on public officials, effectively making these elected officials the “hired servants” of the wealthy elites. Both the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement believe that there is too much influence of money on our legislators. Our representatives are essentially the puppets while the corporate elites are the puppeteers. What this TPP agreement does is to take this puppet metaphor to the international level. Our elections have been reduced to the people choosing who will be the “hired servants” of the power elites from a list preapproved by these same elites.
This TPP agreement is nothing less than a power grab by the largest corporations on the planet to establish a legal framework for global corporate government making all sovereign governments subject to international law enforced by corporations. Passage of this bill would essentially be corporate coup against all member states.
So while this TPP agreement should frighten anyone who is still breathing, the threat does not end as the corporations make their ultimate grab for power. Here are some of the other forces that are potentially focusing the power of the corporate state:
National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA)
With the passage of the NDAA, our legislators overrode constitutional protections so that Americans who are “suspected” of providing “material support” to a terrorist organization can be detained indefinitely on American soil, without access to legal counsel, and without any charges being filed. Think about this for a minute, you do not even have to be charged with a crime and you can be locked up indefinitely? What exactly does “material support” mean? Exactly what is a terrorist? Some states have actually declared that people who secretly video record animal mistreatment as “terrorists”, even if no property damage was done. If nonviolent protests can be declared as terrorist acts, it does not take a great leap of the imagination to see how NDAA might be applied. Imagine if the government used NDAA legislation against journalists or whistleblowers such as Julius Assange, Russ Tice, or even Daniel Elsberg? How will we ever know what is happening in a corporate state if the corporations are successful in indefinitely detaining those who would shed light on their activities?
This NDAA is another example of dangerous legislation being passed in darkness. This bill was signed by Obama on December 31, 2011, during the Christmas break when the media attention would be minimal. In an effort to divide the opposition to the indefinite detention of Americans, Obama promised that his administration would never use the provisions. The questions most people should be asking is: ”what is to prevent any future president or even Obama himself from using indefinite detention, and if there is no need for concern over this, why was it necessary to make that signing statement?” Progressive and conservative groups such the ACLU, Gun Owners Foundation, Tea Party Movement, Institute of the Constitution, US Justice Foundation, Tenth Amendment Center, Occupy Wall St, and many other groups are joining forces to fight this legislation. On social media, resistance in the form of a Facebook group called “Recall Every Congressman Who Voted for NDAA” has been formed. Now, in the context of the TPP, think of how useful this NDAA law could be to a global corporate government in silencing its critics.
Citizens United Ruling
Americans have long had a sneaking suspicion that there was a “hidden hand” directing our government in Washington and the states, and they were right. The “hidden hand” was actually the corporations, unions, and other self-serving special interests that contribute literally $billions to our politicians in order to influence legislation that will favor them. This has happened even with limits that had been placed on these groups that prevented them from directly contributing to campaigns. Thursday January 21 2010, will go down in history as a dark day. This is the day that a divided Supreme Court, in the Citizens United v. FEC ruling, removed all limits on corporate political campaign spending. If you thought our politicians were corrupt and beholden to corporations before, things are about to get a LOT WORSE now that all limits have been removed. Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy swept aside decades of legislative restrictions on the money from corporations in political campaigns and ruled that companies can use corporate funds to support or oppose candidates. This ruling will certainly take its place in history alongside other shameful rulings such as Dred Scott v. Sandford, and Plessy v. Ferguson. These 5 justices opened the floodgates of unlimited funds to influence elections. The strangle hold the banks have over the nation’s wealth will now be amplified by this Supreme Court ruling now that all limits on campaign financing by corporations have been removed.
This black day will go rightly go down in history where the Supreme Court officially validated the takeover of the government by the corporations. The 2012 primary election cycle has already seen where approximately 4 dozen people have contributed massively to the super PACS and decided the outcome of the elections. This type of money influence will cut both ways regardless of which political party you support. One donor has stated that he is willing to spend $100 million in this election cycle. This one single donor “donated” the same amount as 2 million families sending a check for $50. This type of funding by large donors undermines the very foundation of our government and creates an environment conducive to corruption. Now in the context of the TPP, think of the impact that huge global corporations will have on governments with their ability to spend unlimited money anonymously.
Corporate domination of media
Media ownership has now become so concentrated that six corporations effectively control US media today. These companies are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Murdoch’s News Corp, CBS Corporation, and NBC Universal. With this type of concentration, it becomes very difficult to find diversified news in order to form independent opinions. One aspect of this concentration is the increasing number of negative political ads, many of which have no accountability as to their factual accuracy. This will end badly if we do not stop the media from undermining the foundations of our election system. This concentration of media ownership allows billionaires and corporations to ensure that the politicians who will work to pass self serving legislation favoring these wealthy elites are elected to office.
One place where the corporate media has not met with great success in controlling is the independent media on the Internet. Attempts have been made to control access to it, to create “toll system” , as well as extreme copyright rules. We have seen a veritable alphabet soup of acts designed to enhance corporate profits and limit the flow of information. Some examples include PIPA, SOPA, CISPA, and it seems as soon as they are knocked down due to public resistance, another threat arises. For now, the Internet has remained free and a diverse source of information, but vigilance must be maintained. Now, think of the effect that the loss of an open Internet and the increasingly concentrated media ownership will have on the electorate when combined with the unlimited funding that the Citizens United ruling allows, as well as the power that the transnational corporations could gain under TPP.
Increasing Use of Drones for Domestic Surveillance
The use of drones for domestic surveillance is becoming more and more common. The FAA has approved drones for use over the United States and projects that 30,000 drones will be over our skies by 2020. The EPA is actually using drones to monitor cattle ranchers in Iowa, police and universities are using them, and cities are using drones to keep an “eye on things”. New much smaller drones the size of birds and insects are now in development. These smaller drones will be cheaper to produce and deploy which will likely raise the 30,000 estimate significantly and will be much harder to detect. Under a government subservient to the corporations, these drones would effectively be controlled and “regulated” by the corporations. Can you imagine the misuse of this technology to violate any privacy we may have left and to conduct clandestine surveillance?
Militarization of Police Forces
The militarization of our police forces is proceeding rapidly. After 9-11, the Department of Homeland Security gave generous grants to police forces across the nation. Some of the purchases included riot gear, armored personnel carriers, and even acoustic weapons for small towns. A nexus has formed between vendors of military equipment and the nation’s police forces. There are certainly consequences to this militarization of police forces. Once a police officer is deployed into a situation with full riot gear and military training, the chances of violence increases significantly even when the protests remain peaceful. There is significant evidence of this during the Occupy demonstrations.
The roles of police and military are totally different. The police are trained to protect lives, the military is trained to take lives. Consider how these same military trained riot police would be used when they are under the effective control of the transnational corporations and how they would be utilized to silence their critics.
Privatization of Prisons
The privatization of prisons is expanding rapidly. In most societies prisons are run by the state where the incentive is to have fewer prisoners with a lower recidivism rate. In a private system the perverse incentive is to maximize the number of prisoners, and raise the recidivism rate in order to maximize profits. This results in higher numbers of prisoners, broken families, poor healthcare for inmates, and few resources spent to prepare inmates to reenter society. This has contributed to the shame of the US having largest prison population on the planet whether measured in absolute numbers or on a per capita basis, with most prisoners serving time for non-violent crimes. The private for profit prison industry is growing and has actually influenced immigration legislation in Arizona in order to gain more inmates and raise profits. Think of the impact that private prisons, private policing, private contractors providing soldiers for hire, all with loyalty to $$$ instead of their country. We will quickly devolve into a fascist controlled state. This aspect of corporate control should be one of the most frightening to everyone who holds freedom and democracy dear.
Lack of Prosecution For Financial Fraud
If a criminal gets away with committing a crime, there is a strong likelihood that they will commit it again. The lack of prosecution for the major financial fraud that brought about the 2008 economic collapse guarantees that it will happen again. Justice Department officials have stated that these are difficult and complex cases. However, during the Savings & Loan crisis, there were thousands of successful felony convictions, despite the fact that it was 1/70 the size of the 2008 crisis. In fact when the 50 Attorneys General were close to starting their own prosecutions due to the lack of any federal action, the Obama administration stepped in and negotiated its own agreement.
“This agreement granted immunity to the big banks for the criminal robosigning where they forged documents and fraudulently tried to present them in courts across the country. This was essentially another bailout of the banks only this time the bailout was not in the form of money, but rather where changes were made in the law to retroactively transform banks’ illegal behavior into legal behavior. (Watch how this concept of “retroactive” immunity comes up again.) Think about what would happen if you or I forged notarized signatures and tried to pass them off in court. We certainly would serve prison time. Yet, these huge banks were let off the hook even after forging tens of thousands of these signatures and illegally foreclosing on peoples’ homes.”<
We also recently had the spectacle of the Senate Committee on Banking “questioning” one of its largest donors. While wearing presidential seal cuff links, presumably to show his powerful connections, JP Morgan chair Jamie Dimon, easily handled all the softball questions asked of him. Dimon lost over $3 billion (and growing) on risky derivative bets and yet these same senators actually had the audacity to ask him for input and advice on regulating his bank. Think about the implications of total immunity from prosecution for financial crimes in an environment where the TPP has been approved and global corporations are the effective government.
Lack of Protection for Whistleblowers
The increasing prosecution and harassment of Whistleblowers has a chilling effect on government transparency . The government often prosecutes the whistleblower rather than the crime that the whistleblower reveals. The Obama campaign in 2008 promised to protect whistle blowers, but instead he has been waging a relentless war against them. Bradley Manning was declared guilty by Obama BEFORE he was even charged with any crime, yet the shooting of the journalists by the US helicopter crew and their callous statements during the shooting was ignored. When William (Bill) Binney blew the whistle on the NSA’s huge surveillance program, the FBI raided his home in an effort to quiet and intimidate him. Corporations as well as government also often retaliate against whistle blowers. In a corporate state, how would the citizens know about the activities of the corporations if there is no protection for whistleblowers?
Corporate Spying On Americans
The information William Binney made public dramatized the huge scale of the (at that time ) illegal surveillance that was being done on Americans. It also included the fact that AT&T as well as other communication companies were deeply involved in this illegal spying on US citizens. Later, as lawsuits against the corporations started to look like they would be successful, the Obama administration claimed state secrets to kill the lawsuits. Since the telecommunications industry is another VERY large “contributor” to political loyalists, Congress showed its gratitude by passing legislation to grant the telecommunication companies retroactive immunity. (This concept retroactive immunity comes up again.) The questions that should come to mind are: “if no crime was committed, why were the corporations granted retroactive immunity, or if crimes were committed, why were these corporations granted retroactive immunity?” Think of the implications of this in a corporate state, with the increasing use of smaller and smaller drones in an environment that allows corporations to legally spy on you. Then also consider this concept of governments granting retroactive immunity for criminal actions in order to please their major corporate donors. How will the transnational corporations use these “tools” to maximize their profits or to silence opposition?
Summary
What we see is a confluence of forces that has the potential to solidify a shift towards corporate fascism and encase it in international law. Governments will merely be the tools of the corporations to provide a degree of separation from the inevitable police state that will accompany this corporate global governance. Sovereign governments even with all their failings still have at least some concern for the general welfare of their citizens. Corporations by their very nature have only one purpose and that is to generate profits. If an individual whose sole purpose was to blindly enhance profits, without any regard to the standards of what is wrong and what is right in society, would likely be considered a sociopath by mental health experts.
If the TPP were to be enshrined into international law, these same sociopath corporations would now lord over sovereign governments, indifferent to criminal law, and beyond the control of nation-states. They would have the ability to utilize the military’s of some states to wage war on other “less complaint” states.
Doug Casey of Casey Research recently wrote:“It’s most unfortunate, but the US and its allies will turn into authoritarian police states. Even more than they are today. Much more, actually. They’ll all be perfectly fascist – private ownership of both consumer goods and the means of production topped by state control of both. Fascism operates free of underlying principles or philosophy; it’s totally the whim of the people in control, and they’ll prove ever more ruthless. “
There are those who would say that it is unpatriotic to be against corporations, however should corporations be in the business of governing? An open public debate on the future role of corporations is needed.
It is vital that the details of this TPP agreement become widely known and circulated. Once it sees the light of day, it will be defeated because people will oppose it. Sorry, corporations really are NOT people, they are merely state created entities.
What Can You Do? Get money out of politics!
Until we get money out of politics, corporate control of our government will continue and because of the Citizens United ruling, will most likely increase. Attempts at a corporate coups such as this TPP agreement will continue and will keep resurfacing in various re-invented forms until one day one will be successful. We have already seen this pattern with the repeated attempts to impose limits the Internet. There are organizations that are working towards eliminating the corrupting influence of money. Find out more about them and support their efforts. (See resources below)
End the secret TPP negotiations
Until we bring this process into public view, there is the danger that it will be passed quickly and secretly with little or no congressional or public input. Once the details of these agreements are made public, the TPP will defeated, or at the very least modified.
There are organizations that are fighting this TPP agreement and they deserve your efforts and support. (See resources below)
We have reached a crossroad where either we allow the corporations to take control of our nations, or we stop them in their attempts. Take an evening off from the TV and make the effort to make a difference so that you leave your children a better future. Don’t expect others to do this vital task.
Ahead of Transatlantic and Transpacific trade deals: ‘Remember NAFTA’.
NAFTA: 20 Years of Costs to Communities and the Environment (pdf), summarizes more than 100 nonprofit, government and scholarly studies of the trade pact. It was written by the Sierra Club, Sierra Club Canada, the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade / RED MEXICANA DE ACCION FRENTE AL LIBRE COMERCIO
The report warns that pending agreements—the TPP, TTIP and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)—stand to “replicate many of the worst elements of NAFTA.”
“If only NAFTA countries could learn from the fiasco, but they are busy signing more NAFTA-like deals around the world, further taking away our ability to protect the environment and merely crossing their fingers that our ecosystems can sustain all this new growth,” said A. Villamar, trade policy analyst with RMALC, on the anniversary of the agreement.
