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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

#111

Post by knowaveragejoe »

Loughla wrote: post #101
cubano wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well don't forget the idea of direct democracy where we leverage modern IT and allow the people to vote directly on issues, eliminating the need for representatives whom are, of course, often corrupted by monied interests. Many movements and initiatives currently exist promoting this method of government[1] [1] http://aceproject.org/ace-en/focus/direct-democracy/citizen-...

The idea of open citizen voting directly on all issues terrifies me. I see democratic representation as a way to pay someone to read and understand all of the legal jargon most people won't take the time to bother with. People don't take time to read their medicine bottle warnings, let alone the contents of the new Higher Education Act. I'm honestly afraid that righteous attitudes fueled by ignorance would rule. It w…

Yeah, direct voting has major issues. I could only see it being useful on very specific things.

In the simplest cast, everyone would vote for the "cool" proposals but nobody would vote for the ways to pay for them.

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

#112

Post by logfromblammo »

chrisseaton wrote: post #39
reacweb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of procedure is clearly there to fight democracy. I think the TTIP should not be adopted whatever its content, just because of this non democratic procedure. The people who have initiate this procedure should be investigated. Maybe a law should be adopted to punish these nasty people.

> 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.

Also, the "nasty people" believe that such laws do not apply to them. This belief is not entirely unfounded. The laws may technically apply to them, but they are somehow never enforced when it really counts.

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

#113

Post by ionised »

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?

Athens had Sortition.

It's pretty much as democratic as you can get.

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

#114

Post by wickedlogic »

Seems a fitting, though unrelated, clip from Snowden at NH Liberty Forum: https://youtu.be/M94ZO6jYU6c?t=19m28s

People who plan your future in secret, do so exactly because they fear you stopping them.

Stopping all of this is a matter of getting involved in your local/state/nation-state politics now... today. It is disingenuous to suggest that you will get `a chance` to object later. Perhaps that is the case technically, but it will be pushed through unless you have a community, and a local/state government willing to oppose it, and stay opposed to it. The offensiveness of TTIP is lost on most people outside of the technical community. Or, if you give up on your current governance... you can come join those of us in NH who are generally very opposed to such things: https://freestateproject.org/

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

#115

Post by bediger4000 »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #88
TheLogothete wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Make them public. Every populist party in every member state would have a wonderful time catering to tin foil hats and making everyone with half a clue miserable. This is not how negotiations work. You don't make preliminary talks public. Many of the things in those talks are outrageous and no one believes they will be in the final draft. It's how you negotiate. You ask for X, then the opposing side tells you n…

>This is not how negotiations work. You mean it's not how oligarchs want it to work. Proponents of unpopular policy proposals want to govern people, but they don't want to have to explain themselves to the people they propose to govern. >You don't make preliminary talks public. Just because it doesn't always happen, does not mean that it never happens, shouldn't happen, or can't happen. >Making the above process publ…

It worked almost like that in the USA with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Text of the TPP totally kept secret, even from the US Senate and House. Before our "representatives" got a chance to read the treaty, someone forced a vote on trade authority. Now, there's a short period to read a long treaty, which is being changed by the "legal scrub" process, and there's one opportunity to vote on it, no debate on the provisions, very little debate overall. In short, TPP is getting rammed through in the USA. All objections are getting overridden, hard.

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

#116

Post by kitd »

lhnz wrote: post #17

Is this a reason to vote Brexit? I would like to be able to vote out any political party that is entering into such an agreement, but if it's the EU's bureaucracy itself I have no democratic way to do so. (I'm asking this sincerely. I don't yet know enough to be able to be for or against Brexit.)

Although TTIP is between the US and the EU, if the UK Brexited (?), I assume a Tory gov would have their own US-UK equivalent in place ASAP.

Which is quite funny when you consider removing EU regulation is a bit of a rallying cry for the Brexiters (?).

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

#117

Post by Silhouette »

auggierose wrote: post #10

Interesting how a whole article can be written without defining what they are writing about. What the fuck is TTIP?

To add to the other replies, there are two areas where TTIP is particularly controversial.

One such area is that the TTIP might include provisions that are broadly worded and have unintended (or "actually intended but they'd never admit to it") side effects. For example, if businesses in foreign countries gained new rights to sue national governments if the governments act in a way that costs those businesses revenue, would that mean a government can no longer ban smoking in public places by law without paying compensation to the cigarette firms? Or if we extended patent rights in the pharmaceutical industry, would that limit the access of patients in poor countries to generic medicines they can afford, and force them to buy branded versions at much higher cost or go without?

The other area of controversy is the secrecy of the negotiations. It seems likely that significant parts of the proposed agreement have been influenced or even written by lobbyists representing special interest groups. However, pushing these kinds of changes via a trade agreement means the exact wording is kept between a small number of officials from the EU and US and isn't subject to wider scrutiny. Even elected representatives in European and more recently national governments only have access to documents under tightly controlled conditions. Thus there is concern that what will be presented for more democratically accountable consideration will effectively be a fait accompli, one big take-it-or-leave-it bundle of new rules backed by heavy political pressure to take it even if some of the details aren't wanted.

For a more detailed criticism, there are a few articles like this one around:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and...

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

#118

Post by bediger4000 »

alanwatts wrote: post #87
witty_username wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>If the deal is not done in secret, people'll complain about the draft terms before it is finalized. Yeah, that's the point in having drafts, so you can revise them based on feedback from the stakeholders.

Make no mistake, "the people" aren't stakeholders in treaties like ACTA, TTIP and TPP. Corporations are the stakeholders.

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

#119

Post by ZenoArrow »

Aoyagi wrote: post #20
kevindeasis wrote: post #13

Hey smart folks, How does TTIP affect small business, and startups in Australia-Canda-America-Asia? How does TTIP affect small business, and startups in the Pacifics?

I don't think it has any direct affect on those areas. Australasia has TPP, Canada has NAFTA.

There's also a similar deal to the TTIP called CETA that Canada are involved in:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Tra...

As far as I know there are roughly 5 multinational trade deals in the works at the moment... TPP, TTIP, TISA, CETA and one more I forgot the name of that involves China.

EDIT: The multinational trade deal currently being negotiated that involves China is the RCEP:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Comprehensive_Economi...

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

#120

Post by jokoon »

acqq wrote: post #94
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.

I don't think google always has answers to everything. If I look for conspiracy theories, I won't necessarily find information that disprove them.
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