“TPP Is the Most Brazen Corporate Power Grab in American History”

http://www.alternet.org/economy/chris-hedges-tpp-most-brazen-corporate-power-grab-american-history

by lisper • 11 years ago

88 19 11 years ago

oldmanjay• 11 years ago

It's a power grab by specific industries and several governments, not 'the corporations' as an amorphous concept. Mischaracterizing the shittiness of TPP to score rhetorical points for favored politics is a sorry trick, and it lends an air of intellectual dishonesty to a very important topic.

kobayashi• 11 years ago

I don't know about you, but I don't expect anything more from alternet.

api2• 11 years ago

I wish people understood that hyperbole weakens their position.

It's an example of the seen vs. the unseen. What they see when they do this is lots and lots of clicks and lots of attention on social media, and that's interpreted as a win. What they don't see is all the more mature and informed people being swayed in the other direction since they understand that hyperbole signifies a lack of deeper comprehension.

NickHaflinger• 11 years ago

TPP is designed to formalize the reality that corporations tell governments what to do, not the other way round. Why else would governments sign away control of their own economy to secret tribunals appointed by the self same corporations.

maxerickson2• 11 years ago

Countries can withdraw from the treaty.

As a practical matter the forces that led them to negotiate it in the first place will tend to prevent that from happening, but control simply is not being signed away.

mlamat• 11 years ago

It's the Trade federation all over again!

BerislavLopac• 11 years ago

I will not condone a course of action that will lead us to war!

biot• 11 years ago

Even if all this is true, the fact that it contains no references to sections of the TPP that one can independently verify makes the entire article useless.

pdkl95• 11 years ago

At what point can we call these attempts to undermine government power an attack? Modern war uses economic weapons, which can sometimes be more effective (and less expensive) than the more traditional invasion or blockade.

Consider the "tea"/wingnut faction in the GOP (I think they're gone full doublespeak and now call themselves the "freedom caucus"?) We have people cheering over government shutdowns and explicit claims that dysfunction of government is the goal ("It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.”[1], "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."[2]). AT what point does that become "making war"?

I'm totally fine with people that want to argue even absurd points within the system. Attempting to replace that system with something else - such as the ISDS - is another matter entirely. Consider any sizable power of your choice (corporate, foreign government, or anything else). If they hired people to try and subvert the legitimate functioning of our government, would you recognize it? Or would you consider it the usual corruption we call "lobbying". No empire lasts forever, and the American empire is is more precarious than we like to admit.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/on-cusp-of-shutdown-...

[2] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist

jgome3• 11 years ago

Do these look like "economic weapons" to you?

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

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

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

http://qz.com/374138/these-are-all-the-countries-where-the-u...

kevin_nisbet• 11 years ago

I share the sentiment of many of the responses, that this article doesn't really say anything.

However, I've heard bits or pieces about this ISDS mechanism during previous articles about the TPP. Does anyone have reference to a good (balanced) analysis of the TPP in references to the international disputes, and what it actually might imply?

Does it actually make it easier for corporations to challenge laws that might be put in place by countries?

walterbell• 11 years ago

Public Citizen has published a detailed history and analysis of investor-state disputes. They are opposed to the TPP, but at least the issues are summarized by trade lawyers and not only journalists. Their summary page includes statements by members of the U.S. Congress.

http://www.citizen.org/investorcases

contingencies• 11 years ago

I can't help but reflect that if democracy functioned properly, TPP would never have got this far. When and how do we bring out the pitchforks?

One means of resistance may be cryptographically secured supply chains, wherein consumers may vote with their wallets to embargo bad actors either at the corporate or national level. OK, so that's hard to achieve with physical goods without a significant cost blowout (or even with one), but it could be a strategy. Any others?

“TPP Is the Most Brazen Corporate Power Grab in American History”

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