Let’s Take Apart The Corporate Case For FastTrack Trade Authority:

[Panich52]

This pertains, of course, to the corporate-written Trans-Pacific Partbership agreement.

"The promoters of fast track say we need it to push “trade” agreements through Congress to expand trade and increase exports. “What we’re going to do through this trade agreement is open up markets,” U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman told Congress Tuesday, “and then level the playing field so we can protect workers, protect American jobs and then ensure a fair and level playing field by raising labor and environmental standards, raising intellectual property rights, standards and enforcement, making sure that we’re putting disciplines on state-owned enterprises that pose a real threat to workers.” These corporate arguments ... just make me more skeptical of what they are selling. Here’s why... ."

http://caf.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=SoZuWN4ssxInAA5BJzhr1XDy1whHu3vW

[djean111]

1. And some here are taken in by the hype, and are saying oh, it MUST be good! - sickening

Just one example of this is the “investor-state dispute settlements” provision, which I have called “corporate courts.” This part of “NAFTA-style” trade agreements, including TPP, allows corporations to sue governments that pass laws and regulations that interfere with profits. Similar clauses in trade agreements around the world have, for example, enabled tobacco companies to sue governments for trying to protect the health of their citizens. Under TPP these suits will be adjudicated by corporate attorneys, not democratically constituted courts.

Other examples are expanded copyright and patent protection for the giant multinationals, which will increase the cost of pharmaceutical products and potentially restrict the freedom of the Internet.

Obviously the corporate advocates of these agreements want this, so they are using distraction, diversion and shiny promises of increased trade and more jobs to sell the agreements.

The objective of Fast Track - is to brook no objections or changes.
Corporations will be able to get patents on plants and animals and medical procedures. Drug companies will be able to say oh, you can also use this drug for such and such - and extend the patent for many years. This is why India will not join.

I think Hillary is waiting until the shit-spray from this has died down, as she helped write it, and is shilling for it.

[pa28]

2. In practice "leveling the playing field" means dropping our regulatory standards not raising others.

Froman is using standards and protections like environmental law as window dressing to sell the agreement. The leaked documents show the administration has already backed off enforceable standards.

In a press release Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club says: “If the environment chapter is finalized as written in this leaked document, President Obama’s environmental trade record would be worse than George W. Bush’s. This draft chapter falls flat on every single one of our issues – oceans, fish, wildlife, and forest protections – and in fact, rolls back on the progress made in past free trade pacts.”

https://www.popularresistance.org/environmental-tpp-chapter-leaked-weaker-than-previous-agreements/

[Hoyt]

3. So, how does "no agreement" increase environmental standards in countries with lower standards now?

I get a bad agreement would be a problem. But how does walking out of the agreement negotiations help improve standards in countries that have lower standards now?

[pampango]

4. Without fast track a republican congress is going to protect us from an agreement done by Obama?

There's a reason that liberal Democrats are the only group that supports fast track and conservative republicans oppose it by 85%. I understand both since they both expect (or fear) that a conservative congress to pick apart any agreement signed by Obama.

[Panich52]

5. You have it backwards

My email is full of left & progressive tirades against fast track, esp since its 1st application would be TPP. Conservatives don't like it because they see it as giving more power to Obama.*

HuffPost:
Conservatives Oppose Fast Track, TPP: Poll

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4800629

*I'm sure if there was a Repub in WH, conservs would like fast track. W/ Obama there, they've spent 6 years fighting the increased executive power they (esp Cheney) fought f/ 30 years to regain after the Church Cmte's recomnendations in the wake of Watergate. They succeeded in returning much of it during Bush/Cheney w/o considering its implications if a Dem won Oval Ofc (hubris as to 'invincibility'?)

[pampango]

6. Your email may well be full but polls show that Democrats support TPP more than republicans.

This is consistent with polls which show that Democrats support trade in general more than republicans do.

Obviously republicans hate Obama. They also hate environmental protections and labor rights. I doubt that any good provisions in TPP would survive a republican-majority congress without fast track which is consistent with republican opposition to the idea.