tpp – RI Future

May 23, 2016May 23, 2016

Public excluded from FERC public meeting

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Last Wednesday, the #RubberStampRebellion participated in a #FlushTheTPP protest, exposing the U.S. International Trade Commission’s (USITC) report on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a cover-up of a transnational, corporate coup d’état. The USITC’s Economic Impact Report glorifies the TPP and fails to mention that it will significantly worsen the economic impact of the climate crisis. In response, TPP resisters have issued People’s Economic Statement.

The same day, commissioners of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) closed their regularly scheduled May 19 meeting to the public due to “security concerns,” with just 16 hours’ notice. They then held their meeting with members of the press and “invited guests,” some of whom were representatives of the fossil fuel industry FERC is supposed to regulate.

On Thursday, day four and the last day of the beginning of its Rubber Stamp Rebellion, Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) held a previously scheduled rally from 8-10 a.m., calling on FERC to issue no new permits and to transition to an agency promoting non-polluting, renewable energy and efficiency.

After the rally, three members of BXE tried to get into the building that houses FERC, but were turned away by security guards. They were told that only government employees and invited guests could get into the meeting.

“It’s our understanding,” said BXE member Melinda Tuhus, “that the invited guests from industry were allowed into the meeting and only the public was kept out; that we could’ve pre-registered for the meeting, but of course to do that one would’ve had to know that the meeting was going to be closed, which wasn’t announced until the night before.”

From the FERC webcast, for example, the CEO of So Cal Gas, the director of So Cal Edison and others made a presentation about “preparations for LA basin gas-electric reliability and market impacts.”

BXE held a meeting in front of FERC that was open to the public, where activists spoke about the harms they have suffered from fracked gas infrastructure approved by FERC and climate leaders added their support to BXE’s efforts to stop FERC from issuing new permits.

The Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the HipHop Caucus criticized President Obama, California Gov. Jerry Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for claiming to be climate heroes while backing fracking and fracked gas.

“They are not climate leaders,” he said, “until they realize we must transition to 100% renewable energy.” After listing several fossil fuel projects that have been defeated through public opposition, Yearwood pointed toward the FERC offices and said, “The folks inside are losing. We are winning — for the next generation.”

Mary Wildfire drove from West Virginia hoping to speak out at the FERC meeting. She told the crowd outside that coal, oil and gas all have climate change in common. “The impacts are already severe. The issue is how are we going to prevent catastrophic climate change.” FERC is “permitting well into the twenty-teens because we don’t want to bother changing our habits.”

Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Nebraska, which played a critical role in defeating the Keystone XL pipeline, said she is now working with people in other states to fight fossil fuel projects. She said that she and others recently planted sacred corn seeds along the paths of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Mountain Valley Pipeline through several mid-Atlantic states.

“The seeds of resistance are growing everywhere,” she said.

Peter Nightingale of Fossil Free RI spoke and mentioned that a BXE delegation had invited Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to attend the rally to defend his support for fracked gas as a bridge fuel, which is both scientifically and morally wrong. The invitation was also intended to provide the senator with an opportunity to announce what he will do to make sure that FERC does not approve National Grid’s proposed fracked-gas liquefaction facility at Fields Point in Providence. Shockingly, the senator did not show.

The final event of the day was a visit to FERC commissioner Colette Honorable’s residence in Virginia. This was the final visit of four to hold tFERC commisioners personally responsible for the local and global destruction caused by their decisions. Local police, which was awaiting them, told the rubber-stamp rebels that the neighborhood was posted as private property. They set up banners and a faux pipeline, and handed out fliers at a nearby intersection. Before leaving, protesters arranged for a pizza delivery to Commissioner Honorable. As a special treat, the pizza was served up with eminent domain papers informing the commissioner that her property had been seized to make way for a fracked-gas pipeline.

#VIDEO: #RubberStampRebellion #pipeline crew #EminentDomain delivery #FERC @CHonorableFERC #keepitintheground pic.twitter.com/jbqVh7oRnB

— BeyondExtremeEnergy (@BXEAction) May 19, 2016

This concluded the week of actions marking the beginning of the #RubberStampRebellion.

[Based in part on a BXE press release]

For more see this BXE blog.

April 25, 2016

What Sanders and Trump have in common

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It’s hard to imagine two more different snapshots of Rhode Island than when Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump visited this week in their respective upstart campaigns to become the next president of the United States.

Sanders chose an outdoor venue at a public park in Providence. He played Steve Earle and Bob Marley songs. People threw frisbees and sang protest songs. Trump set up a tent outside a hotel in Warwick. He went with classic rock standards like the Rolling Stones and Elton John. The police broke up several fights in the parking lot outside the event.

Throngs of young people came to see Bernie. The audience was diverse and colorful. They seemed happy and well-off. The vibe was beyond positive. It was a celebration of what’s possible in politics. Even the jeers for Goldman Sachs seemed in good spirits.

The jeers at the Trump event did not seem in good spirits. The audience was mostly older, white people. They were angry. The vibe was more of a protest. It seemed the rigged economy had genuinely left them behind.

There are great differences between Sanders, the socialist-leaning Senator from Vermont who is leading a progressive revolution in the Democratic primary, and Trump, the ionic Manhattan businessman who seems to have already taken over the Republican Party. But there was one striking similarity too.

Both Trump and Sanders railed against free trade agreements in general and lamented the loss of manufacturing jobs in Rhode Island when China joined the World Trade Organization in particular.

Like Sanders, Trump laments the loss of American jobs. He said he wants Apple to make its product in the United States. He said Hillary Clinton “is controlled by the people who don’t want those jobs to come back” and he mocked Ted Cruz for supporting the Trans Pacific Partnership. Sanders mocks Clinton for supporting the TPP, and says Americans have to exercise their consumer power by not supporting corporations that outsource jobs.

Anti-globalization economic populism is the nexus between Bernie Sanders’ political revolution and Donald Trump’s promise to make America great again. I’m not sure if these two constituencies could or should ever come together, but they definitely have that in common.

November 16, 2015November 18, 2015

Talking beer, beauty, and murdered protestors with ‘Out of Sight’ author Erik Loomis

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Erik Loomis is a Rhode Island treasure.

This much is clear from his Twitter feed, his prodigious blogging, and – based on excerpts in truthout and In These Times – his latest book, Out of Sight: Long and Disturbing Story of Corporations Outsourcing Catastrophe.

If you aren’t familiar with Erik – Rhody’s own fire-spitting, NRA-fighting, grave-visiting, environmental/labor history guru – you’ll want to head down to AS220 on Wednesday night (November 18) at 5:30 p.m. to hear about how “our systems of industrial production today are just as dirty and abusive as they were during the depths of the industrial revolution and the Gilded Age, but…hidden in faraway places where workers are most vulnerable” (a quote from the book’s promo copy).

In advance of the event, I spoke with him about a variety of topics via email. (And, no, RI Future’s previous three interviews – here, here, and here – had not answered all of my questions.)

SCALE OF 1 TO 10, HOW UPSETTING IS THIS BOOK TO READ?

Hmmm….depends on how much you already know about these things. I’m going to guess a 9 for most people.

We mostly have some sense of the problems with the economy–we don’t have steady work, we don’t make enough money, we know the 1% is gaining more control over us. In Rhode Island, we know the jobs have disappeared and that long-term unemployment and urban decline is a big issue. So that’s expected. What people might find more upsetting is the horrors corporations create in the rest of the world in order that they can profit.

At times the book is pretty rough–child labor, pollution, workplace deaths, oil companies having protesters murdered, and climate change are some of the topics I talk about. And I think that readers will be pretty angry at finding out why corporations have moved the jobs abroad and all the different ways it affects our society today. So many of our problems stem, at least in part, to corporations being able to move jobs around the globe. It leads to the decline of unions, which takes working voices out of politics and creates a vacuum filled by wealthy plutocrats like the Koch Brothers. It turns workers and environmentalists against one another when in fact they share a common corporate enemy. It makes it harder to fight climate change. It kills workers overseas while making it harder to fight for a dignified life at home. But I also try to point at concrete ways forward where we can fight to make positive change.

So you should be pretty mad after reading this book. But you should also feel empowered to create changes instead of hopeless despair.

WHAT WAS ONE “HOLY SHIT!” DISCOVERY YOU MADE WHILE RESEARCHING THE BOOK?

I’ve been writing about this stuff for years so I wasn’t too shocked about most of it. But I think one thing that is surprising to me and will be surprising for most people is how many times the government has made attempts to regulate production and working conditions that can be useful for us in trying to fix these problems of global labor exploitation and corporate domination over our lives.

We are told that the free market is a force like gravity that can’t be stopped. But that’s absurd. It’s a series of choices made by people and shaped by governments. Government can allow corporations to exploit workers or it can help stop that exploitation. In many cases, including as early as the 1915 Seaman’s Act, which allowed exploited sailors on foreign ships to leave their jobs when they landed in the U.S. if the conditions on the ships were bad, the government has gotten involved, both at home and with foreign workers, to create something that looks more like a race to the top than a race to the bottom. We can get the government to take these steps again.

YOU’RE A GUY WHO’S BEEN INVOLVED IN SOME INTERESTING CAMPUS-FREE-SPEECH CONVERSATIONS. CARE TO WEIGH IN ON WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON AT YALE AND MIZZOU IN THE LAST WEEK OR SO?

I don’t have particularly strong opinions on the worrying so many people are engaging in about whether the protesters are right or are not respecting free speech. I find these conversations uninteresting and those who complain about these things tend not to support protest generally. Sure, the students may be strident. But protesting students are always strident! That’s what they are supposed to do! Reasoned, civil discourse is for older people. We need both. The reality is that there is a lot of racism throughout the nation. That includes on college campuses. That should be fought. Yale does not need buildings named about John C. Calhoun, architect of secession. And the president of Missouri was horrible and tolerated racist actions on campus. He needed to go.

WHAT’S THE GREATEST ALBUM EVER RELEASED?

It’s funny you ask that. I listen to music almost constantly, except when I’m reading. I cannot live without it. Some people can’t write to music. I can. So what is the best album? I don’t know, that’s so hard and depends on the minute. Jazz, classic country, rock and roll, soul, so many genres. Here’s a list of 10 great albums. We’ll say 5 are “classic” albums, before 2000. And 5 are from the last 15 years:

“Classic”

Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On
Miles Davis, In a Silent Way
The Who, Who’s Next
Millie Jackson, Caught Up
Ray Price, Night Life

“Recent”

Drive-By Truckers, Decoration Day
Wussy, Strawberry
Frank Ocean, Channel Orange
James McMurtry, Live in Aught-Three
PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

YOU’RE A NON-NATIVE RHODE ISLANDER. IT’S ALWAYS INTERESTING TO HEAR HOW THIS STATE APPEARS TO, SAY, A WEST-COASTER. WHAT HAVE YOU NOTICED ABOUT THIS PLACE?

I grew up in Oregon. That’s pretty different than Rhode Island. There are some great things about the state–the seafood. Autumn leaves. Summers on the water. The proximity to New York and Boston. Cool old buildings.

There are some weird things about Rhode Island too. The crazy level of corruption in Rhode Island politics. The accents. That no one has been west of Pennsylvania. That Providence sets its water on fire while we Oregonians, um, don’t. And then there’s the winter. What’s the deal with the winter? How do people survive this every year? I think last winter traumatized me permanently. Not to mention the potholes and tire damage it all causes.

Finally, and I don’t want to alienate any readers, but the beer scene in Rhode Island is atrocious. First of all, a great pint of beer in Oregon runs you $5, tops. You can still find $3 happy hours for some of the best beers in the nation. The beer scene has improved here in my 5 years and I’m thankful for that, but we need more brewers, we need better brewers, and we need to find ways to sell this beer for less than $7 a pint. Rant over.

THE WORD “DISTURBING” IS RIGHT THERE IN THE SUB-TITLE OF THE BOOK. WHAT ACTIVITIES, IF ANYTHING, DO YOU HAVE FOR MAKING YOURSELF UN-DISTURBED? DO YOU EVER JUST TRY TO ENJOY THE DAY, LIKE NOAM CHOMSKY?

I laugh a lot at the world. I go outside a lot and enjoy the beauty of the country. I watch Oregon football, which usually makes me feel good if less so this year. You can’t let the bad parts of the world own your life if you can help it. There’s a lot of beauty in the world. Remembering that is important.

Come down to AS220 Wednesday 5:30 to 7:30 to hear more from Loomis about his book, beer, Oregon, TPP and anything else you’d like to ask this Rhode Island treasure about.
Erik Loomis on his new anti-globalization book “Out of Sight”
Erik Loomis on TPP: the ugly, the bad and the good
Erik Loomis on Bernie vs. Hillary: Not as critical as defeating the GOP

November 10, 2015November 11, 2015

Erik Loomis on TPP: the ugly, the bad and the good

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The Trans Pacific Partnership knows no party lines. It is supported by Barack Obama and Marco Rubio, it is reviled by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has moved from supportive to evasive.

Nationally acclaimed author and URI history professor Erik Loomis’ new book “Out of Sight” deals with the exact issues the TPP would exacerbate – and he is anything but evasive on the topic. There may well be no one in Rhode Island who understands its complexities as thoroughly. We spoke at length about the new so-called trade deal, which he cautioned me not to see as a trade deal.

“The trade aspects of it are overrated,” said Loomis, who will be speaking about the TPP, as well as his new book, at an event at AS220 next week. “What it really is is a corporate rights agreement.”

In his new book, Loomis argues that we need to create international labor and environmental standards so that companies can’t keep moving around the globe to find cheaper places to pollute and people to exploit.

The most controversial aspect of the TPP are the Investor-State Dispute Settlement courts it would further empower. These courts, explains Loomis, allow corporations to sue countries when regulations infringe upon their profits. He says we need to flip this idea on its head and create something like a “worker-state dispute settlement court” and that they provide the “framework” for international regulations.

Below is our full 16 minute talk on the TPP. Tune in tomorrow to find out who Loomis is backing for president and why. Yesterday, we focused on his new book.

November 9, 2015November 10, 2015

Erik Loomis on his new anti-globalization book ‘Out of Sight’

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The so-called middle class was largely created by labor unions and government regulations during a brief 40-year window during the 20th Century, explains popular progressive author and University of Rhode Island history professor Erik Loomis.

“From the beginning of the 1930’s with the successful unionization of the American workforce and the New Deal continuing through the 1970’s,” he explains, “was a period where American workers were getting a bigger slice of the pie, where workers were dying on the job less and less, where workers themselves were demanding safer workplaces and promoting the creation of OSHA and the EPA and other agencies that are going to ensure that Americans lead decent lives…”

Loomis’ latest book is about what happened next.

“And then corporations figured out how to escape this,” he said during a sit down interview at his URI office in Kingston. “And they do this by moving jobs overseas.”

Aptly called Out of Sight, it’s about how big corporations abandoned the American middle class to bring bad working conditions and environmental degradation to third world nations.

“This is an intentional move by corporations,” Loomis says, “in order to get away from union contracts, to get away from environmental regulations, move it overseas. They can recreate the bad old days, undermine the middle class here, increase their profits and force the burden of global production onto the world’s poorest workers.”

He will be discussing his new book at AS220 on Wednesday, November 18 from 5:30 to 7:30. The event is sponsored by RI Future. An evocative author and speaker of national prominence, Loomis is the Rhode Island’s top scholar on globalization. His book was featured on C-SPAN’s Book TV, as well as in Truthout, Counterpunch, In These Times and Dissent, among others. He’s a regular contributor to the Lawyers, Guns and Money blog.

Few understand the Trans Pacific Partnership as well as Erik Loomis and he’ll be discussing and answering questions about it at the event, as well. We discussed this at length in our interview – including a potential upside for workers and progressives. Tune in tomorrow for the second part of the interview in which Loomis discusses the TPP. Wednesday, we talk about who he’s backing for president, and why.

April 22, 2015April 23, 2015

RI delegation doesn’t love fast tracking TPP deal

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President Barack Obama is aligning with Republicans and corporations while openly bickering with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and is on the opposite side of “most Congressional Democrats” over a potential Trans Pacific Partnership deal.

The president is also largely at odds with Rhode Island’s congressional delegation on fast-tracking a potential trade compact with 12 Pacific Rim nations. Of the Ocean State’s four elected officials in Congress, three have now spoken out against giving Obama fast track authority. Only Senator Jack Reed is still holding his cards close as the Senate Finance Committee considers granting the president trade promotion authority today.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said he opposes fast track authority for the TPP deal, he told RI Future exclusively today.

“It would be a mistake to provide fast-track authority for trade agreements that could further undermine American wages, manufacturing jobs, and our environment,” he said in an emailed statement. “We need the opportunity carefully review any proposed trade agreements to ensure we’re not repeating the mistakes of past free trade deals.”

In February, Whitehouse gave a speech against trade agreements in general on the Senate floor in February, saying: “I start with a state that has been on the losing end of these trade deals. People say that they are going to enforce the environmental and human rights and labor and safety requirements of these agreements. I haven’t seen it. And I gotta say I don’t like the process very much either. It is secret, we are kept out of it. Who’s in it is a lot of really big corporations and the are up to, I think, a lot of no good in a lot of the deals.”

Congressman David Cicilline is against it, too. He wrote this op/ed in the Providence Journal last month.

“Any agreement that promotes fast-track trade to advance the Trans-Pacific Partnership without thorough review and Congressional input is a bad deal for Rhode Island workers,” he told RI Future yesterday. “Congress should play an important role in making sure trade policies are fair for American workers, businesses, intellectual property holders, and consumers. The fast-track model undercuts oversight of trade agreements and makes it more difficult to protect the interests of working families. We should be working to promote American manufacturing, implement flexible workplace policies that benefit middle-class families, and finally raise the minimum wage so everyone has an opportunity to succeed.”

Also yesterday, Congressman Jim Langevin reaffirmed his opposition to a TPP deal. In February he and Cicilline signed onto a letter opposing it and yesterday he emailed this statement to reporters:

“The United States has been working with TPP negotiating partners for more than three years. This agreement could greatly shift global trading patterns and accordingly deserves the highest level of scrutiny to ensure it does not displace U.S. jobs or undermine our country’s competitiveness. While I favor expanding global trade, it is important that any free trade agreement places American workers and companies on an enforceable level playing field with foreign trading partners when it comes to labor rights, environmental regulation, intellectual property protection and other critical issues. For that reason, I am opposed to passing Trade Promotion Authority legislation with respect to the TPP.

“Congress has the responsibility to set trade policy, and ‘fast track’ procedures largely circumvent this important review. There is a better way to make decisions of this magnitude that significantly impact America’s place in the global economy, and that must include robust debate and discussion from all partners, including Congress. I will continue to work to ensure that trade agreements protect American workers and consumers and do not undermine America’s ability to compete in the global market.”

Reed, on the other hand, isn’t as vocal, according to spokesman Chip Unruh, who said Rhode Island’s senior senator “will take a look at the Finance Committee’s proposal, but he wants to ensure any trade agreement benefits Rhode Island consumers, workers, and businesses.” Unruh noted Reed rejected such TPA authority in both 2002 and 2007.

According to the Washington Post “most Congressional Democrats are opposed” but Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is pushing for a deal that he says has benefits for liberals.

In March the New York Times reported the “ambitious 12-nation trade accord pushed by President Obama would allow foreign corporations to sue the United States government for actions that undermine their investment “expectations” and hurt their business, according to a classified document.” The Nation called the TPP proposal “NAFTA on steroids” in 2012.

April 18, 2015

Protest against the Trans Pacific Partnership in Providence

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On Friday over 20 people representing Occupy Providence, RI Sierra Club, RI MoveOn, RI Progressive Democrats of America and the RI Coalition to Defend Human & Civil Rights gathered outside the Federal Building near Kennedy Plaza downtown to protest the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that protesters described as “a corporate power grab disguised as a trade deal.”

Twelve nations are negotiating the terms of the TPP, including the United States, Japan, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, and Brunei Darussalam. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), TPP “is a secretive, multinational trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement.”

The EFF has identified two main problems, that “leaked draft texts of the agreement show that the IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and hinder peoples’ abilities to innovate” and that the “entire process has shut out multi-stakeholder participation and is shrouded in secrecy.”

According to Pat Fontes, speaking at the protest, “No one has officially read the TPP.” Everything we know about the deal has been leaked to the public. Even our elected representatives, who will be voting on this trade deal, have not read it or understand what’s inside. In Rhode island, only Representative David Cicilline has come out against the TPP.

“Corporate courts,” says Fontes, “will impose fines that we the taxpayers will have to pay.” Corporations will have the ability to sue governments over laws that prevent companies from making “expected profits.”

Susan Walker, a student in Public Health Policy at Brown University says that “corporations will be helping to make policy.” There will be an impact on public health, as “generic drugs may be eliminated” as new rules governing patents are enacted. “Medicine will never become affordable and generic,” says Walker.

Chris Curry, of RI MoveOn, says that TPP “is based on the assumption that corporate profits take priority over everything else.” If ratified, TPP “will threaten our social safety net, including Social Security and Obamacare” as corporations sue the government over profits lost to these programs.

Barry Schiller of the Sierra Club says that TPP may allow corporations to force the repeal of environmental laws when they are deemed unprofitable.

Everette Aubin said that “TPP will make it impossible to move to green energy. If solar panels interfere with corporate profits, you’ll have to shut it down.”

Occupy Providence’s Randall Rose pointed out that “parts of the TPP are classified and not to be seen by the public until four years after passage.”

“They don’t want people to know about this,” said Rose, adding that since the trade deal NAFTA was passed, Rhode Island “lost more than half of our manufacturing jobs.”

TPP has been described as NAFTA on steroids.

Robert Malin, of the Sierra Club, said that TPP places “corporations above the laws that citizens pass.”

Though TPP is far from a done deal, the New York Times said, “key congressional leaders agreed on Thursday on legislation to give President Obama special authority to finish negotiating [TPP], opening a rare battle that aligns the president with Republicans against a broad coalition of Democrats.”

With a Republican controlled congress and President Obama in agreement, preventing the passage of TPP will require a big effort on the part of opponents.

You can download a fact sheet on TPP prepared by Occupy Providence, here.

February 27, 2015March 1, 2015

Sheldon, progressive senators oppose free trade deals like TPP

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Have you heard about the Trans Pacific Partnership yet?

If not, that’s exactly what the corporate interests – like big pharma and Wall Street – who wrote this trade deal were hoping. The TPP would be the largest such multinational pact ever and it’s been crafted entirely in secret. “It’s a trojan horse in the global race to the bottom,” said Robert Reich, “giving big corporations and Wall Street banks a way to eliminate laws that get in the way of their profits.”

Thankfully, the progressives in the US Senate are finally starting to vocally oppose it – even though it puts them at odds with President Obama, who supports it. Elizabeth Warren had this op/ed in the Washington Post this week, and 8 senators spoke on the floor yesterday to oppose such “free trade” deals.

“I start with a state that has been on the losing end of these trade deals,” said Rhode Island’s Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “Rhode Island, not a big state, has lost more than 50,000 good paying manufacturing jobs since 1990.”

Whitehouse was joined by sens Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

“I don’t like the process very much either,” said Whitehouse on the senate floor yesterday. “It is secret, we are kept out of it and who’s is in it is some really big corporations and they are up to I think no good in a lot of these deals.”

So does Pascoag resident Chris Currie, a member of the RI Progressive Democrats who has been sounding the alarm about the TPP locally since before many in the beltway even knew it existed.

“As we have seen in the recent mid-term elections, multinational corporations have been collectively spending billions … to rig and/or otherwise determine the outcomes [of] elections, and they have succeeded in that regard in many ways,” he said in a recent email. “But they are well on the way toward achieving such objectives in the future without having to spend anywhere near that much money by financing the implementation of the so-called Trans Pacific Partnership (“treaty” and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) “treaty” which have the full support of President Obama, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and most our Republicans in Congress. Once either of those two “treaties” are implemented, multinational corporations won’t have to worry about bribing our politicians anymore, because if our federal, state, or municipal government enact ANY KIND of legislation that impedes the “expected profitability” of multinational corporations.”

Currie has been sending warning emails about the TPP for years. Here’s an excerpt from one sent in August of 2013: “Promoting (and attempting to “fast track”) the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans Atlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaties which will surrender our nation’s sovereignty to a cartel (world government?) of greedy multi-national corporations (that have no god but money) by empowering them to effectively nullify US federal, state, and local laws which “interfere with the profitability” of their corporations. It would be like surrendering our national sovereignty to greedy bastard (and deadly) corporations like Monsanto!”

February 27, 2014February 27, 2014

Cicilline, Langevin oppose ‘fast-tracking’ TPP free trade agreement

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed 12 nation free trade agreement that’s been nicknamed “NAFTA on steroids” between the US, Canada, Japan and others, has the American left – if not mainstream America yet – on high alert for two reasons.

One reason is that so-called “free trade” agreements and organizations like the TPP, NAFTA and the WTO benefit big business rather than regular Americans.

“Global health advocates, environmentalists, Internet activists and trade unions have deep concerns about what the deal might contain, and are making as much noise as possible in order to influence negotiations before a final version becomes public,” according to a Washington Post Wonkblog post from December.

And the other reason is that the final version could win congressional approval without ever becoming public. President Obama has been seeking what is called “fast track authority” which would stifle lawmakers ability to amend the deal.

That’s why Congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin, along with 150 House Democrats, signed a letter saying the TPP it should not be fast tracked.

“I believe it is too important an issue for Congress to be bypassed with fast-track authority,” Langevin said in an email to RI Future. “The TPP is far-reaching, affecting economics, intellectual property, the environment, health care and so much more, and as such, it merits a transparent, measured discussion between the Administration and members of Congress.”

Added Congressman David Cicilline: “Using trade promotion authority to ‘fast track’ complex trade agreements restricts Congress’s ability to ensure trade policies are fair for American workers, businesses, intellectual property holders, and consumers. Congress should have a say in crafting trade agreements, which impact U.S. workers and our economy.”

While details of the TPP are still shrouded in secrecy, there is some evidence that the free trade agreement could have a particular impact on an industry important to Rhode Island’s economy. According to the International Business Times (emphasis mine): “The U.S. has its own issues about opening up certain industries, too, such as removing sugar import tariffs and quotas that would harm American sugar beet farmers. The U.S. is also facing the sensitive prospect of inflicting harm on domestic textile and seafood producers in the negotiating process.”

But the Left in general fears the deal because, like NAFTA, it could put American workers in peril and would probably have adverse effects on environmental protections as well. According to the Economist: The “21st-century” aspects of TPP are “behind-the-border” issues, such as intellectual-property protection, environmental and labour standards, the privileges of state-owned enterprises and government-procurement practices. All are problematic.”

And then there are the provisions of the TPP that should raise ire in every American. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “Leaked draft texts of the agreement show that the [intellectual property] chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and hinder peoples’ abilities to innovate.”

January 19, 2014

Action Alert: TPP

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This week, a bill to fast track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was introduced in Congress- but Congress members are not allowed to have a copy of it. This secret trade deal is being negotiated with over 600 corporations- (how democratic!) And if President Obama has his way, if he is able to negotiate the terms of this agreement (without input from Congress) it could easily give corporations the power to overturn laws which threaten their profits. We would see our food safety regulations undermined, and certainly an increase in fracking (and, of course, the many ailments which accompany such activity).

Goodbye, clean water and clean air!

Hello, GMO’s and chemical leaks!

Luckily, many groups are urgently working to stop the TPP, by making Congress aware of the facts- through organizing voices of constituents like you.

January 22 is now “Derail Fast Track” lobby day – and your voice has never been more needed!

Take action with these three simple steps:

1) Download and print the cover letter and fact sheet here.

2) Look up your Representative’s local district office. If you’re not sure who your Rep is, find out here. 

3) On Wednesday, January 22 (or another day that works for you), deliver these materials to their office. (It’s best to call ahead to make sure someone is there to meet you).

September 30, 2013October 4, 2013

The TPP is coming

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The future is pushing through the gates of congress and it’s horrendous. No Homeland Security for this. Remember the classics: Soylent Green & Blade Runner? Well this ain’t a movie, folks, but the white hats we need to count on may just be surprising ….

This week, the president is going to urge congress to relinquish their responsibility for fully considering the implication and the intention of international treaties by “fast-tracking” the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty. With “fast-track” authority, the president, not Congress, would control the legislative process and allow passage of the most secretive piece of legislation in recent history – maybe ever.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, is a “free trade” agreement that has less to do with tariffs than with changing our world as we know it. Study of hundreds of pages of complex issues would be limited to a few days and debate would be limited to a few hours. No amendments would be allowed, only an up or down vote. And that vote may be happening as I write this. If the president gets his way, I sincerely believe the Trans-Pacific Partnership, “NAFTA on steroids,” could be the coup de grâce for our already feeble government.

Negotiations for the TPP have been going on for the last 5 years, but members of Congress, small business leaders and the media have been shut out. Unlike past treaties, the business of the TPP is BIG business and is strictly limited to the BIGGEST of the big. And their deliberations are being held behind closed doors and chain linked fences with a strong cadre of security police to guard them.

Negotiators consist of representatives from 600 of the largest international corporations and trade officials from countries of the Pacific Rim: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand. Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States.These are the original 11 members. Recently Japan, the world’s largest gas importer, has indicated interest.

It has been touted as simply another free trade agreement to counter the growing exporting power of China, but it is something far greater and grander, since only 5 of the 29 articles in this “free trade” treaty actually relate to trade. It seems to be the ultimate wet dream of the international corporate elite. And, ironically, word is that it may eventually include China as well.

Why NAFTA on steroids? While NAFTA gives authority to international corporations to sue any city, state or country that passes laws that hinder them from doing any kind of business: water rights, food safety oversight, fair labor practices, environmental protection, and responsible financial practices, just to name a few, for financial damages resulting from income lost due to being kept from raping & pillaging people and the planet, (cf. suits in progress in Quebec by a corporation claiming $ billions in lost revenue because of the province’s anti- fracking law and the new one that pharmaceutical giant, Eli Lilly just launched: an investor-state attack on Canada’s medicine-patent policy. Lilly is demanding $500 million dollars in damages). These are before civil courts now.

Thankfully, doors and chain links and guns are no barriers to people of conscience, and someone inside was appalled enough to start leaking information. According to this source, if the TPP becomes law, it would create new corporate tribunals made up of lawyers from international corporations. These “judges” would hear the cases and rule on them. If they rule for the corporation, the only way for the judgment to be overturned is if it is unanimously voted against by of all of the signatory nations.

When the leaks began, a group of concerned organizations got together under an umbrella called openthegovernment.org and sent a letter to President Obama. It is so brilliant that I include the first 4 paragraphs. You can read the rest on their website.

February 28, 2012
Dear President Obama,

As organizations dedicated to government openness, scientific integrity and accountability, we are writing to urge you to increase the transparency of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiating process. Currently, without any public access to even the most fundamental draft agreement texts and other documents, important policy decisions that may significantly affect the way we live our lives by limiting our public protections are being made by executive branch trade officials.

On your first day in office you committed to creating an “unprecedented level of openness in Government.” Recently, your Administration co-launched the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency and empower citizens. You also have said that your transparency initiative will extend to the Office of U.S. Trade Representative. Administration officials have repeatedly stated that the administration will conduct the most transparent international commercial negotiations ever with inclusion of all stakeholders to ensure that the TPP FTA will meet your goal of a “high standards worthy of a 21st century trade agreement.” We support all these goals.

However, multiple aspects of the current negotiations process utterly fail to meet these standards. Instead of new levels of transparency, the process has instituted unprecedented levels of secrecy. Indeed, the extreme secrecy surrounding the process was lauded by a U.S. trade lawyer and former U.S government trade official involved in decades of negotiations: “This is the least transparent trade negotiation I have ever seen,” said Gary Horlick at a Global Business Dialogue Forum on the TPP FTA in late January.

At a minimum, your Administration should provide access to the negotiating texts of the pact’s various chapters for all congressional staff, the public, and the press. Such transparency is standard practice for trade negotiations. The World Trade Organization posts negotiating texts on its website for review, and negotiating texts were also made available on the recently-completed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). However, this practice has not been adopted, to date, in the context of TPP FTA talks. Indeed, to the contrary, parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding 2010 imposing heightened secrecy for the process.

It was signed by 23 organizations, from the American Association of Law Libraries through the Washington Coalition for Open Government. Obviously, it fell on deaf ears. Because President Obama speaks Orwellian: ‘openness is …’

By January 2013, even Ron Kirk, Obama’s handpicked U.S. Trade Representative quit. He told Reuters that:

“If the contents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership were known, it would not be passed because it would be so unpopular.”

And this June , after her repeated petitions to study the treaty were denied, that fearless Senator from Massachusettes, Elizabeth Warren, wrote an open letter to Ron Kirk’s proposed replacement, U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman concerning the TPP:

“ If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.”

We hoped for so much, in 2008. I now believe that although his appointments of Arne Duncan to destroy public education, sending the Health Care Bill with the Single Payer option to “Bought” Baucus’ finance committee, and Summers and Geithner to continue the pillage of Wall street, could be nothing in comparison to the potential of damage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in trampling on the rights of “we the people” in creating laws to protect ourselves. Could Mr. O’s sudden passion for fast-tracking this trade agreement have any connection to his political mama, the newest Secretary of of Commerce? http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/obama_did_it_for_the_money_20130507 Whatever is the reason for his push, this betrayal of the peoples’ interests could be his greatest.

Ironically, our best hope, for now, may be the obstructionist 113th congress, bless ’em. But be forewarned, even if it is postponed for this congressional session, the threat of the TPP will remain.

You can join me in writing letters and calling the president and congress and just bearing witness. Also talk to people and pass the word forward. You’d be surprised how many informed people don’t know. Check out MoveOn.org for the October 18th rally at 4pm in Providence.

Get informed – Threats Posed by TPP – TradeWatch.org

There are worldwide threats equivalent to the TPP.

Europe’s equivalent is TISA, that unlike US, has sparked massive protests under the banner of the OWINFS.org:

“The ‘Our World is not for Sale’ (OWINFS) network is a loose grouping of organizations, activists and social movements worldwide fighting the current model of corporate globalization embodied in global trading system. OWINFS is committed to a sustainable, socially just, democratic and accountable multilateral trading system.”

These great people and their organizations, at least, give me hope.

Peace.

Lisa Roseman Beade

Tag: tpp

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