We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Regulation of financial industry is history if Trade In Services Agreement passes

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.

Based on Wikileaks' revelations on TISA,  Dolack finds that this third plan, in addition to TPP and TTIP which apply to corporations with investments in commerce, will subordinate governments in most countries to the interests of financial corporations, the primary engines used by capitalists to exercise control over most economies. Thus TISA will further strengthen their domination over member countries.
What reads as bland bureaucratic text will be interpreted not in ordinary courts with at least some democratic checks, but by unaccountable and unappealable secret arbitration panels in which corporate lawyers alternate between representing multi-national corporations and sitting in judgment of corporate complaints against governments.