Wait, they did?
They did!
Thank you, Mitch McConnell!
Itās rare that Iām moved to issue McConnell an attaboy, but here we are.
The secrecy is to keep the public from knowing whatās in it, otherwise most people would be opposed.
The lawmakers are kept from knowing the details as well, certainly not for trade reasons because the governments already negotiating already know what is involved, and some lawmakers would probably be opposed as well. Letās face it, the players involved are large multi-national corporations that are outside one countryās jurisdiction and the āfreerā trade is not about getting rid of tariffs as there are very few of those but āde-regulationā which sounds great like getting rid of red-tape but really is about getting rid of environmental laws, safety regulations, labour code, etc. WHICh is why most people would be opposed if they found out that for instance some corporation that puts chemical additives into say gasoline would be able to sue a government that disallows that for environmental reasons.
The secrecy is not just before and during the negotiations but is intended to continue for years until the trade agreement is an established fact and very difficult to get out of.
Itās just a little bit surprising that the whole thing hasnāt been leaked to the public by now. There are enough sufficiently motivated individuals out there with the know-how, surely?
Call it fascism, call it corporatism, I call it treason. When the law of the land is kept secret from its citizens, how is that not tyranny?
Weāre way beyond thatāthe law is now kept secret from the people whose sole responsibility is to write, debate and vote on laws.
Think of it this way, if there is a god, and Iām not saying there is,
but. . .
if there is a god,
These guys are all going to burn in HELL.
Wait, are you thanking McConnell for blocking the bill? You know heās in favor of it, right?
Hrm, guess I misunderstood. He gets an attaboy if heās helping kill it.
Otherwise itās the same old shit from that guy.
EDIT: Crap, further reading here at Ars seems to back you up. Same old dickery. Thanks for catching me on that.
Hereās how secrecy in a trade treaty is theoretically justified.
Borduria protects its agriculture interest with high tariffs.
Syldavia protects its timber interests with high tariffs.
Borduria and Syldavia negotiate an agreement that essentially opens up agriculture and timber markets in both countries. They sign an agreement, which Borduria promptly ratifies.
Syldavian timber interests then pressure the Syldavian legislature to add a codicil to block imports of Bordurian timber, while insisting that Borduria abide by the treaty as negotiatedā¦ Naturally, Borduria declines, and withdraws from the treaty.
A waste of time, says Colonel MĆ¼stler, as he makes plans to ensure that this wonāt happen again.
TPP is a multilateral treaty, which complicates all the negotiations.
But closed door negotiations ignore the real dangers of trusting trade negotiators.
this whole TPP thing is just shitty.
Robert Reich has a good 2.5-minute rundown here: https://youtu.be/3O_Sbbeqfdw
Dear TPP pimps: āIf youāve got nothing to hide, youāve got nothing to fearā
I have no actual comment, I just loved your comparisons. The Order of the Golden Pelican for you!
Thatās so very comforting, Mr. armchair theologian.
Iām sure these people burning in hell 40 odd years or so from now will definitely have an enormously positive effect on all of the not dead people who have to live with the consequences of these fuckerās treason.
/Sarc
Iād say weād be better off burning them here on earth just to be sure, than simply imagining theyāll go to some abstract bad place in the future, as long as they donāt get right with āgodā.
If there is a god, itās pretty obvious he doesnāt give a flying fuck what happens on earth, so we better take matters into our own hands. Because sky daddy has been drunk for the lastā¦Foreverā¦ and never seems to be interested in our macaroni art, or watching us jump off the diving board.
If there was a god, she wouldnāt let these mortals crown themselves demigods and run roughshod over her creation
Also, if youāre thinking of the Abrahamic god, this entire mess is his fault anyway. In fact all bad things are directly his fault because he knew they were going to happen (omnicient) and could have stopped them (omnipotent) without even having to worry about physical or logical impossibility (resides outside of the universe and isnāt constrained to the universeās rules about reality.)
Therefor all bad things that happen are the will of such a god, and that god is in fact evil, and not worth even worshiping if it existed anyway.
So much fud. The text of the entire bill will be made public before it is ratified, even if fast track authority is granted. There will be a final vote with full disclosure of the billās contents before it is made law of land.
This just makes the initial negation possible without much meddling by congress until the end.
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