Stephen Lendman

ACTA 2.0
TPP: A Trade Deal from Hell

s address the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). They discuss what the companion article to this one calls a trade deal from hell.

Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch says it's a "Corporate Power Tool of the 1%." Secret negotiations plan:

• offshoring millions more US jobs to low wage countries;
• freeing giant banking crooks entirely from oversight;
• banning "Buy America" policies in deference to global marketplace mandates;
• decreasing access to medicines and making prescription drugs less affordable;
• infesting America with toxic foods and other harmful products; and
• destroying fast eroding environmental and health safeguards.

In many respects, TPP represents a death sentence for fundamental human rights, environmental protections, employment prospects, and constitutional freedoms. Nonetheless, it's being secretly discussed in multiple negotiating rounds.

Obama officials push it. They're pressuring negotiating nations to accept Washington diktats. They urge others to join those currently involved.

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Stephen Lendman

ACTA 2.0
Stealth Trade Agreement Secret Negotiations

Obama and political Washington support an alphabet soup of repressive police state laws, other freedom destroying measures, and hellish trade deals.

SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA threaten online freedom. Free speech and civil protections are endangered species. So are other inviolable rule of law provisions. With bipartisan support, they're heading for the trash bin of history.

Obama officials secretly negotiated and adopted ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). It established unrestricted supranational global trade rules. Its provisions trample on national sovereignty, privacy and personal freedoms.

In October 2011, Obama lawlessly circumvented Congress. He signed ACTA. He falsely claimed it's not a treaty. He usurped diktat authority. He claimed he acted by "executive agreement." He strong-armed other nations to go along.

TPP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership) is ACTA 2.0. The oundation (EFF) calls it "a secretive, multi-nation agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property laws across the globe."

Ten nations negotiated it secretly plus Japan without formal status. They include America, Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Brunei, Canada, and Mexico.

They want it adopted quietly out of public view. Since March 2010, multiple negotiating rounds were held. They continue. Other nations may come aboard. Mexico is the latest.

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William Blum

I'm sure most Americans are mighty proud of the fact that Julian Assange is so frightened of falling into the custody of the United States that he had to seek sanctuary in the embassy of Ecuador, a tiny and poor Third World country, without any way of knowing how it would turn out. He might be forced to be there for years. "That'll teach him to mess with the most powerful country in the world! All you other terrorists and anti-Americans out there — Take Note! When you fuck around with God's country you pay a price!"

How true. You do pay a price. Ask the people of Cuba, Vietnam, Chile, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Haiti, etc., etc., etc. And ask the people of Guantánamo, Diego Garcia, Bagram, and a dozen other torture centers to which God's country offers free transportation.

You think with the whole world watching, the United States would not be so obvious as to torture Assange if they got hold of him? Ask Bradley Manning. At a bare minimum, prolonged solitary confinement is torture. Before too long the world may ban it. Not that that would keep God's country and other police states from using it.

You think with the whole world watching, the United States would not be so obvious as to target Assange with a drone? They've done it with American citizens. Assange is a mere Aussie.

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