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

Friday, April 5, 2013

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Corporate Power-Tool of The 1%

Click here to access article by Nile Bowie from Boiling Frogs
The level of secrecy surrounding the agreements is unparalleled – paramilitary teams scatter outside the premise of each round of discussions while helicopters loom overhead – media outlets impose a near-total blackout of reportage on the subject and US Senator Ron Wyden, the Chair of the Congressional Committee with jurisdiction over TPP, was denied access to the negotiation texts. “The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations — like Halliburton, Chevron, PhaRMA, Comcast and the Motion Picture Association of America — are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement,” said Wyden, in a floor statement to Congress.
The author provides many horrendous details that he has uncovered in the proposed TTP regulations that would be enforced by supra-national bodies under the control of multinational corporations.

It appears to me that what fascism offered as an answer to capitalist elites in the 1930s, these so-called "free trade" agreements are their strategy of choice in the 21st century. Whereas fascism crushed democratic forms of government in the earlier period, these supra-national bodies will simply make democratic forms, as weak as they are, irrelevant.