The site seems to be down. I know most people here are tech-savvy enough to find this on their own, but here's a cached version:
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TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
141–150 of 208 posts
Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's rare but it does exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek
You'd have to find an MP with that same ability.
While it is unlikely that a natural eidetic currently serves in parliament, memory is something that can be trained and improved.
So you take a willing MP, teach them about mnemonics, memory palaces, chunking, and list-ordering narratives, and you could likely smuggle out a few dozen pages every week.
Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
So? Let the publicity stunts happen. You don't have to pay too much attention to them. You can take valid critizism on board. Look, the thing has to be made public to be voted upon anyways and at that point the small time poltician with a hard-on as you put it can also start his show. You shouldn't be afraid that some idiots talk crap about something you work on if you really believe in it. Just follow through and se…
You just completely ignored how the real world works. It might seem sound and logical in your head - and to be honest, it is - but it is just not how it works out in reality. You seem to think we live in this perfect world where only rational things happen and everyone is well read and educated. Unfortunately, we do not and please open your eyes already. Thank you.
So can you tell me with some proper arguments why what I said doesn't work? I'd be more likely to believe you if you said more than "this is not how the real world works". Thanks.
Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
#144It'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…
Most law are written after years of public debates in parliaments (for those countries which has one), by a larger number of public inquiries and studies, and by appointed politicians talking about it in public speeches, conferences, personal website, news papers, social media and so on. The process is so connected to bureaucracy that we recognize it as the definition for it, with the majority of time spent in public discussions or waiting for the next report to finish.
We have had close to nothing of those things regarding this treaty and the changes it propose, so the process for TTIP is completely different from how most laws are made. If we compared its process to the recent work done in EU to draft network neutrality laws, we see almost no comparable aspects at all.
Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
#145It seems like many people don't really understand how lobbies work.
Corporations' interests aren't identical so they cannot be defended by one lobby. And there are lobbies defending non-corporate interests. And those can be a. quite powerful b. quite nefarious.
The secrecy during negotiation is necessary because "someone soemwhere has a good reason to oppose something".
The fact that there are many somewheres, someones and somethings involved make it impossible to do it in public.
Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have a proposoal that is so vulnerable and weak that it can't handle being in the public eye, or (in this case) the process that crafts it ensures it is so obviously corrupt and blatantly anti-citizen, then it shouldn't ever be allowed to become law. The bill being "torn to shreds" is a feature, not a bug -- the citizenry of every involved country would all be a lot better off if the TPP and TTIP were subject…
I don't think you've read the comments you are replying to. Negotiators make proposals which might seem outrageous. Nobody thinks they will get drafted. It is a step towards getting a concession from the opposing side. Just like in the movies. One side starts at 4000, the other at 1,000 and they meet at 2,500.
If they had to negotiate in public, they would no longer be able to argue this way, you are correct. They would also be unable to make concessions and compromises which are bad for the voting citizens of the country. And they would have to be clear about what their policy objectives are.
You keep saying "but... but... it would be different from how it is now!" all over this thread (and are frequently rude and condescending). And everyone else is saying "yes, exactly, that's the point". Different is not bad. You need to go a step further and explain why transparency would /not be better/, pointing out that having our laws drafted by corporate interests with near zero citizen input in secret is the way we currently choose to do things is not good enough.
Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
#147Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
#148It seems like many people don't really understand how lobbies work. Corporations' interests aren't identical so they cannot be defended by one lobby. And there are lobbies defending non-corporate interests. And those can be a. quite powerful b. quite nefarious. The secrecy during negotiation is necessary because "someone soemwhere has a good reason to oppose something". The fact that there are many somewheres, someon…
> "someone soemwhere has a good reason to oppose something"
Especially since TPP is (in large part) designed to prevent China steamrolling entire industries and crushing foreign economies through shear size and sketchy economic measures. If the negotiations are public China has way more time to react to the measures, either by working around them or by threatening countries until they drop out.
TPP may or may not be a bad thing, but "negotiated in secret" doesn't make it bad.
Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
So? Let the publicity stunts happen. You don't have to pay too much attention to them. You can take valid critizism on board. Look, the thing has to be made public to be voted upon anyways and at that point the small time poltician with a hard-on as you put it can also start his show. You shouldn't be afraid that some idiots talk crap about something you work on if you really believe in it. Just follow through and se…
This is not meant as an insult, really. You genuinely don't understand how politics works at all. It's not just some idiot talking crap about something you're working on. This isn't a college project. It's someone putting your entire past, present, and future on television and the radio making false claims about you. It's someone making your personal information known publicly so you can receive threats. If you don't…
What you've described is the case about any law or policy. And yet people debate them. Details of them. On the floor of congress, around the dinner table, on talk radio, on TV news, all the time. In public. And people don't whine and cry and complain about how mean voters are. Why should the corporate policymakers who write the TPP/TPIP get a special shield? Are they particularly sensitive and fragile as a class? Or are they writing laws that wouldn't survive a fraction of a second in public because they are corrupt and anti-citizen?
If you think people would get upset about trade policy, maybe you should look at issues that ARE debated in detail like abortion, gay marriage, gun control. People are murdered over these issues. Trade policy barely registers on the scale.
Re: TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret
#150It seems like many people don't really understand how lobbies work. Corporations' interests aren't identical so they cannot be defended by one lobby. And there are lobbies defending non-corporate interests. And those can be a. quite powerful b. quite nefarious. The secrecy during negotiation is necessary because "someone soemwhere has a good reason to oppose something". The fact that there are many somewheres, someon…
Let's say you're a random African country negotiating a trade deal with the US.
- you have a nascent agroculture sector that could benefit from some lower tarifs on exports to the US. - you also have some labour preference laws in your existing oil industry (this is quite common).
Because the only people in the US who care about your country are probably the Oil Companies operating there, getting rid of the labour restrictions in the oil industry is a priority on the US side. And lower tarrifs on your Cocoa or Vanilla exports wouldn't cost much.
But you know those entrenched local workers in the oil industry are a powerful lobby in your country. You know they will raise hell if those restrictions go away. And you know they'll probably win if you don't have something to show for it. Something real and something a more powerful "lobby" (like millions of farmers) will support.
Do you really think it's smarter to have that fight back home before starting the negotiations ?