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The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

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Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#131

Post by walterbell »

crdoconnor wrote: post #121
joesmo wrote: post #31

What are the chances that this will not be passed by congress? Is there enough animosity that might stop this? I'm really hoping for some serious partisan bickering and ridiculous Obama hate here or is this treaty so horrible (yes it is) that our representatives intend to push it through no matter what?

This can be used to rile up protest against it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/slavery-really_b_7462... This in particular does not go down at all well with the strongly religious, even the religious right. So far it's mostly escaped their notice, however. I have a feeling that if enough people call their Congresspeople and asking why they are voting for slavery and the destruction of American sovereignty som…

Good point. The TPP is such a nightmare that we have even forgot the mass graves.

Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#132

Post by pbhjpbhj »

res0nat0r wrote: post #122
SwellJoe wrote: post #105

The thing I find most galling about this is not merely what it contains. It is an awful document, with horrible policy, yes. But, what is most disgusting is that we had to learn of how bad it is from leaked documents . The leadership in many nations (not just in one nation, this is effectively a conspiracy at the highest levels of several nations, most egregiously the US) supported the TPP, lobbied for the TPP on beh…

I thought that this whole "secret" thing has been explained ad naueum here and on reddit already. It is t secret before it becomes law, or is going to get snuck in under the radar. It will be open for review before it is voted on. Also you don't give away your bargaining wants to your competitors before you sign a contract, kind of like how you don't go to a job interview and tell them out of the gate the exact minim…

Yes, you don't "give away" your plans to the public because then they may be able to use the democratic process to do something about it, you keep it secret so that you can manipulate the media over a short period and swing through your sweeping changes.

The thing is that is completely anti-democratic. If it hurts democracy to do the best thing for a small capitalist overclass then democratic nations should be choosing to uphold democracy. I wonder if there are any such nations?

Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#133

Post by cchip »

SwellJoe wrote: post #105

The thing I find most galling about this is not merely what it contains. It is an awful document, with horrible policy, yes. But, what is most disgusting is that we had to learn of how bad it is from leaked documents . The leadership in many nations (not just in one nation, this is effectively a conspiracy at the highest levels of several nations, most egregiously the US) supported the TPP, lobbied for the TPP on beh…

I completely agree. This is a conspiracy by definition: "a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful." The unlawful thing being the laws they are trying to pass (as they are not yet laws, and not determined by lawful structures: judicial system). Its all going from executive to legislative, and we are fucked.

The administration is attempting to weaken our sovereignty and globalize [overthrow] our government. They should be charged for treason.

If you voted Obama last time, please don't vote this time. Your bad judgement isn't necessary.

Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#134

Post by DanBC »

Asbostos wrote: post #87
DanBC wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper products come with worker exploitation.

That implies the whole concept of developing nations is bad and we should try to prevent it. All of them have worker exploitation to some extent. Don't forget even exploited workers still choose where to work. They're not slaves. Furthermore, tariffs aren't introduced to protect foreign workers. That really isn't the reason for tariffs.

> Don't forget even exploited workers still choose where to work.

We're not talking about long hours or low pay here - although those alone should be cause for concern, but about working conditions that cause death and permanent injury.

They're not slaves, but they don't have that much choice about where to work. And they don't have any power within their place of work.

Why do you think women "choose" to work in a clothing factory with no fire safety where they're locked in by supervisors?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/bangladesh-fact...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/bangladesh-fact...

Or in clearly unsafe factories?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/19/rana-plaza-bang...

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/apr/24/...

Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#135

Post by pdkl95 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #102
ddingus wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>I'm wondering how long before we have government-sanctioned libraries, languages, and chipsets that we may develop for. "You there! STOP!" "Huh?" "We've got you on record for bootstrapping, machine code, and compiler writing!" "so?" "That's a threat, and you are going to have to come with us and register." "Register for what?" "As a weapon. We need to know where you are and who you associate with..."

I doubt it will go that bad, but I wouldn't be surprised if the end result of the War on General Purpose Computing will be laws limiting access to turing-complete machines to licensed software engineers. For everyone else, playing with a compiler will be illegal.

As I suspect the "unique digital exhaust" tracking problem will only get worse as machine learning improves, sometimes a proper Butlerian Jihad seems like the only solution. So I remind myself often that such an extreme solution can always happen later, so there's no excuse not to fight for a better solution in the meantime.

When faced with a very difficult task, there is a tendency in humans to feel helpless and unable to affect any meaningful change. This quickly spirals into a nasty form of learned helplessness. This feedback loop can lead to a nihilistic attitude. If you can't win, why bother trying. Even Feynman succumbed to this problem[1] after the Manhattan Project.

One thing I do know about the people trying to put the General Purpose Computer back in it's bottle, and the people who are so terrified of their fellow citizens they create a surveillance state to try to preserve their status quo: every person that succumbs to a defeatist or nihilistic attitude is one less person is one less person standing in their way.

[1] sigh - it seems the BBC took down the video I had bookmarked. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgaw9qe7DEE#t=1114 ). A quick search found the video at dailymotion (jump to 18:34 for the comment I'm referencing): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x24gwgc_richard-feynman-the...

Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#136

Post by walterbell »

SwellJoe wrote: post #105

The thing I find most galling about this is not merely what it contains. It is an awful document, with horrible policy, yes. But, what is most disgusting is that we had to learn of how bad it is from leaked documents . The leadership in many nations (not just in one nation, this is effectively a conspiracy at the highest levels of several nations, most egregiously the US) supported the TPP, lobbied for the TPP on beh…

The lead TPP negotiator is ex-Citibank, http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/05/28/us-trade-rep-wal...

"Noting deep ties between the country's top trade negotiator and Wall Street banks, ten groups representing millions of Americans are calling on the White House to make public all communications between U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and the massive financial institutions that stand to benefit from proposed trade deals."

What about lobbyists? http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-ustr-emails-...

"... 400 pages of email traffic between USTR officials and industry advisors ... the emails reveal a close-knit relationship between negotiators and the industry advisors that is likely unmatched by any other stakeholders ... Many of the industry representatives are themselves former USTR officials ... Jim DeLisi of Fanwood Chemical said he had just seen the text on rules of origin, and remarked, “Someone owes USTR a royalty payment. These are our rules. … This is a very pleasant surprise.”

Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#137

Post by chippy »

EdSharkey wrote: post #66
jacobolus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Jade Helm scare-o-tron rollout was completely botched and scrapped as far as I can tell. Can you explain what you mean? As far as I can tell Jade Helm was a fairly routine military training exercise, which was latched onto by a group of conspiracy nuts. What’s a “scare-o-tron rollout”?

I personally draw a distinction between the gigantic-sized stuff the US federal government does (military and wars, fiscal and monetary policy, taxes, transfer payment programs) and the medium-sized stuff (HUD, EPA, FCC, etc.) The medium sized stuff can be steered by the adminstration in power. The people you elect can exert influence in those areas, I mean. But the huge stuff is out of their control. The military es…

I'm a Brit, first time I've heard about Jade Helm. a quick DDG search showed multiple hits for "conspiracy theories".

Ultimately people want to think they are living in the most critical important times of the world ever. But this is a fallacy of how we live, in the present. Everyone has thought that their time then was the most critical. Look to history to get perspective and the pinch of salt we need.

Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#138

Post by PavlovsCat »

Take note of the people who kept parroting that line about this needing to be negotiated in secret, because otherwise a meddlesome, uninformed public might misunderstand and damage an otherwise positive thing. There was plenty of this on HN, too, and thanks for nothing.

Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#139

Post by quanticle »

res0nat0r wrote: post #122
SwellJoe wrote: post #105

The thing I find most galling about this is not merely what it contains. It is an awful document, with horrible policy, yes. But, what is most disgusting is that we had to learn of how bad it is from leaked documents . The leadership in many nations (not just in one nation, this is effectively a conspiracy at the highest levels of several nations, most egregiously the US) supported the TPP, lobbied for the TPP on beh…

I thought that this whole "secret" thing has been explained ad naueum here and on reddit already. It is t secret before it becomes law, or is going to get snuck in under the radar. It will be open for review before it is voted on. Also you don't give away your bargaining wants to your competitors before you sign a contract, kind of like how you don't go to a job interview and tell them out of the gate the exact minim…

It will be open for review, but not for modification. Thanks to "fast-track", Congress will just get an up-or-down vote. So, no, the final provisions won't be secret before they become law, but it doesn't matter at this point. Congress doesn't have the ability to say, "We'll take the good, but not the bad."

Re: The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

#140

Post by Excavator »

yrro wrote: post #124
walterbell wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those pre-TPP cases are nothing compared to the future combined scope of TPP (Pacific), TTIP (Europe) and RCEP (China, Korea, India, and other Asian countries). Never say there is nothing you can do. Tell other people about ISDS. Share the videos [1][2][3][4]. Jon Oliver's video [4] about the Philip Morris tobacco ISDS lawsuit against Australia (for brown paper packaging) caused such an outcry that TPP negotiators we…

Whenever I think about this for more than a passing moment I just become so scared and angry. How the fuck is a company able to take a country to court over a public health measure? Who the fuck voted for the evil bastards who made that possible? How do they fucking live with themselves?

The ones who listen to what they "will do", complain about what they do, then promptly forgets during the buildup to the next election.

The ones who follow "the line" and are afraid of getting ostracized by their peers.

The ones who value pocket change now over future prospects.

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