Just Say No to the TPP!

The latest so-called "free trade" agreement being proposed, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, is basically NAFTA on steroids.  We all know what NAFTA did to American jobs as well as workers in all three countries involved, and it wasn't good at all.  We can clearly expect such terrible trends to only accelerate should the TPP come to pass.  That alone is reason enough to vote "no", since we all should know better than to fall for something like this again. 

But what makes the TPP particularly scary is what it actually does to the rights of We the People.  At least under current law, from local communities all the way up to the federal government, there still remains some power that we have to regulate the behavior of American corporations.  We understand the need for checks and balances against corporate excesses, after learning the hard way time and again.  But the TPP would essentially subordinate any such power to the "international standards" that the corporations involved in the partnership have agreed to, and practically forbid any local standards that are stricter.  Thus, our government would be forced to relax any standards that could be considered a "trade barrier" as a result of the cleverly-written trade rules.  In fact, the bulk of the agreement deals more with these arcane rules rather than with traditional trade matters.  So it should be obvious what the TPP really is:  a corporate coup in disguise, that will allow corporations to run amok even more so that they do now.  And if we weren't a full-blown corporate plutocracy before, we sure will be after it comes to pass.

Just a few examples of some of the more shocking features of the TPP include:  a prohibition on financial transactions taxes (including the kind that the TSAP proposes), no limits allowed on the size of banks, increased monopoly pricing on Big Pharma's drugs, the worst parts of SOPA, increased fracking, and less regulation of public services.  And if these are the "features," we'd really hate to see what the "bugs" are!

The TSAP unequivocally condemns the Trans-Pacific Partnership and any attempt to pass it.  There is really nothing good that will come of this Faustian bargain, except for the elites and mega-corporations who are fighting like hell to get it passed.  And we must fight equally hard to ensure that it does NOT pass, ever.  The alternative is permanent corporate rule over all of us.