Opposite to history, TPP is designed to STRENGTHEN (not weaken) monopolies

[Faryn Balyncd]

Historically, free trade agreements were designed to reduce or eliminate protective barriers (tariffs, in particular), which weakened monopolistic power by opening borders to trans-border competition.

But, as Paul Krugman has noted, there is already extensive trading between TPP nations as protective tariffs are largely already gone. Consequently, from a "free trade" perspective, the TPP is not a big deal, as virtual free trade is already a fait accompli.



So now, as everyone knows, "free trade agreements" are no longer about free trade.

It's a familiar pattern. Corporate interests have co-opted the process, utilizing the language of free trade, while using the largely secret negotiations to erect new walls to competition.

These new walls are primarily in the form of locking in corporate written interpretations & enhancements of intellectual property law (especially as preferred by Big Pharma, big AgriBusiness) and the outright subversion of popular sovereignty by the setting up (separate from established courts) of corporate designed arbitration panels which allow corporations to sue & financially cripple any pesky local or state government who would have the audacity to use its constitutional power & duty to protect the general welfare by passing appropriate environmental, worker protection, or safety regulations (or, in the case of the TPP, have the audacity to require labeling of food content such as GMO ingredients).

So we now live in a world of "Free Trade Agreements In Name Only", mockeries of language which, by strengthening rather than weakening corporate monopolies, have the opposite effect of historical, actual free trade, having been co-opted, twisted, and perverted by corporate interests.

[RiverLover]

1. "Free Trade Agreements In Name Only" Bingo!!

This is a great(really bad) example of how twisted it can get even with "Fair Trade"~

A $10 Million Blow to Fair Trade: How a Grant to Fair Trade USA May Take Down a Movement
11/26/14

News came out last week that Bob Stiller, founder of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (now Keurig Green Mountain) and still recognized as Chairman Emeritus, made a $10 million dollar grant to Fair Trade USA, a fair trade labeling organization on whose board Stiller sits. This is a challenge grant requiring $10 million additional dollars to be raised, bringing the total investment in Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) to $20 million.

In theory, this news should have the fair trade movement jumping up and down. Instead, many of us are wondering if this may be the final blow to the meaningful fair trade that we have advocated for so long.

...FTUSA announced its rogue Fair Trade for All initiative opening up the model to certify independent smallholders and large-scale "estates" (aka plantations) as fair trade.

...hat is, it allows single-owner plantation coffee to be labeled as fair trade, directly competing against small-scale growers who have put democratic organization and building long-term relationships at the core of their model as they struggle to gain market access in a market that favors the bigger and the less democratic. These small-scale farmers understand they can be outcompeted, perhaps put out of business, in the very fair trade model that they helped create. Strengthening the FTUSA certification model could very well mean the end of small-scale farmer fair trade....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-geffner/a-10-million-blow-to-fair_b_6225474.html

Very sad.

[Faryn Balyncd]

2. How the TPP would undermine internet freedom:

http://www.exposethetpp.org/TPPImpacts_InternetFreedom.html

(what to expect when the folks who put malware on CD's write trade agreements?)

[appal_jack]

7. A phrase I've used since the nineties is "Freedom for whom?"

These agreements privilege the freedom of investors to extract capital, power, and rents from the people and landscape as a whole. They greatly limit the freedom of people to organize and agitate for fair wages, environmental quality, and a sound public infrastructure.

To paraphrase George Carlin, it's an elite club of freedom, and we ain't in it.

k&r - excellent OP Faryn Balyncd,

-app

[newfie11]

3. That's why its a secret

Reminds me, I need to reread 1984 again.

[zeemike]

5. No need to read it, we are living it.

Complete with doublespeak and doublethink and the two minute hate.

[FiveGoodMen]

6. I think the two minute hate has been expanded

How many hours a day is Rush on?

[zeemike]

10. Well really it is an all day hate on Fox.

Limpballs is just the icing on the hate cake.

[newfie11]

8. +1 nt

[Enthusiast]

4. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Great quote by Orwell!

[Octafish]

9. Outstanding post -- in the non-Orwellian sense.

The globalists are using trade to enslave the planet, just like back in the colonial days.

Fascistic as hell, which is why PBO's insistence on its continued passage makes me want to barf.