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TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

truepublica.org.uk

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Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#91

Post by Loughla »

eis wrote: post #84
TheLogothete wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complain is a very mild word. Proposals will be shred to pieces by local politicians looking for quick score and media always on the look for a sensation. Nothing will ever get signed if proposals are made public.

If you can shred something to pieces then maybe it shouldn't be signed? And if it was good then they wouldn't be able to shred it to pieces. Sounds like you'd be afraid of public discourse.

That is unbelievably naive, or immature. One of the two, I'm not sure which.

Public discourse isn't the same as what happens when the media spins a narrative about a piece of legislation. You and I both know they don't need truth to make a story.

And small-time politicians looking to make a name for themselves will always impede the process, regardless of whether or not it's a good process.

Having the public voice their dissent is good. Letting a piece of legislation get ripped to shreds because some small-name representative has a hard-on for one of the bill's co-creators is not.

Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#92

Post by mtgx »

germanier wrote: post #53
abpavel wrote: post #4

It's especially frightening for us Europeans, that TTIP can overrule existing local legislature, and that officials representing EU states only have access to the full text of 600 pages for 2 hours every thursday, accompanied by two security guards beside you at all times, behind closed doors, after the metal detector where you have leave all your electronics and recording devices behind. Oh, and you're not allowed t…

Just to make one thing clear: Before the treaty comes into force it needs to be voted on by the Euroepan parliament and national parliaments. Before the votes the treaty will be published. What is a highly guarded secret are the current drafts , not the final agreement. It's actually not really different from how most laws are written, especially those proposed by the government. While those are in the drafting phase…

1) They promised they would give at least a year for people to see the final draft before voting on it. Looks like they might vote on it this summer already, and the final draft is not even out yet.

2) The Parliament can vote it down or up, which means there's a 90% chance it will pass, unless there are large protests all over the EU, like it happened with ACTA. However, this time they need to be even bigger because ACTA was mostly about copyright, so the EU Parliament didn't care that much about it. This is about trade and they care much more.

Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#93

Post by dragonwriter »

witty_username wrote: post #56
germanier wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to make one thing clear: Before the treaty comes into force it needs to be voted on by the Euroepan parliament and national parliaments. Before the votes the treaty will be published. What is a highly guarded secret are the current drafts , not the final agreement. It's actually not really different from how most laws are written, especially those proposed by the government. While those are in the drafting phase…

If the deal is done in secret, people'll complain that its secret. If the deal is not done in secret, people'll complain about the draft terms before it is finalized.

Yeah, the whole point about popular sovereignty is that people get to complain -- and have their complaints feed into the process of making rules which will bind them. So, people getting to complain while the deals is being negotiated about draft terms that bother them is a feature, not a bug.

Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#94

Post by acqq »

jokoon wrote: post #35

Sometimes I just want to think those treaties' function is to curtail multinationals, so that countries can be able to effectively organize themselves against those corporations who have become hard to regulate in a context of globalization. So if you want to successfully do it, you have to keep as many people in the dark, since I also believe those big companies have a tremendous influence on politicians. Maybe it's…

> Sometimes I just want to think those treaties' function is to curtail multinationals

It is exactly completely opposite. And documented many times over. Just google.

Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#95

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

theoh wrote: post #14
hollander wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should send someone in who has a photographic memory. In two hours he/she can browse those 600 pages, and later someone else can type them out. And this may all be done for a good hourly fee.

I'm skeptical about the existence of that kind of photographic memory.

I've had two students in six years who could perfectly reproduce the information on a textbook page after one look at it, even if they had no understanding of the material.

Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#96

Post by rev »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #66
rev wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Foundation of the western world government" would be more accurate. There are countries that (unlike EU) cannot be forced into signing this kind of treaties: e.g. China (for any number of reasons) or Russia (it's economically insignificant, but with political and military stances clearly in disagreement with those of the West).

The EU cannot be forced into signing anything. Nor can the U.S or India be forced.

This entire discussion is fundamentally about whether or not one or the other side of the treaty is "forced" (or "tricked" or any word denoting "win-lose" situation)—otherwise why are all the negotiations being made behind the closed doors?—like many others I find the opacity of the US-EU TTIP talks disturbing but you're free to disagree. Anyway that wasn't the point of my post. I only tried to bring attention to the fact that W in the hypothetical NWO is not (and cannot be) the whole world. There are "important" countries that are out of the system whatever the system might be.

Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#97

Post by striking »

TheLogothete wrote: post #81
RodericDay wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human inventiveness is infinite, can take us to the moon and land supercomputers in our hands... but apparently making smart business and transparent democracy compatible is just too damn difficult.

Human stupidity is infinite, not our inventiveness. Einstein's words, not mine.

So you accept oligarchial rule because you don't trust your fellow man?

What a sad world you live in.

Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#98

Post by chrisseaton »

pdkl95 wrote: post #59
chrisseaton wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe a law should be adopted to punish these nasty people. I don't think you should punish people with ex post facto laws, and in many countries you can't.

There may already be a law on the books in some countries. Regarding the US, these treaties will probably effect more harm to the protections and government as defined by the Constitution than any army. So at what point does that count as "levying war"? Or are we going to pretend that "war" doesn't include economic weapons? (I suspect this might be easier in other countries, that use a less restrictive definition of…

Do you genuinely think it would be reasonable, just and workable to extend the definition of war to drafting a proposed trade agreement that you don't like?

Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#99

Post by Pr0GrasTiNati0n »

jdimov10 wrote: post #74
pgnas wrote: post #29

Welcome to the New World Order, you didn't think it was gong to be a democratic order. Did you? These sweeping treaties (they are not agreements) lay the foundation of world government. yiu can be certain that nothing good will come from politicians secretly meeting to talk about a plan that no one is sharing. These treaties provide for unprecedented power to corporations to determine the goods and services to be tra…

At what time and place exactly was the "old" world order democratic?

Rome

Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

#100

Post by ronjouch »

abpavel wrote: post #4

It's especially frightening for us Europeans, that TTIP can overrule existing local legislature, and that officials representing EU states only have access to the full text of 600 pages for 2 hours every thursday, accompanied by two security guards beside you at all times, behind closed doors, after the metal detector where you have leave all your electronics and recording devices behind. Oh, and you're not allowed t…

I was wondering whether this was a joke/exaggeration. Turns out it's not: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/10/surreal_world_of_the...

Thanks for bringing our attention on this.

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