In last week’s State of the Union address, many Americans had their collective ears open to hear President Obama’s remarks concerning the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. This legislation, widely known as the TPP, has for the most part been negotiated in secret and seems to be a major policy initiative of the Obama administration on the surface. But is that really the case??This so-called trade agreement covers 12 Asia-Pacific countries and 40% of the world’s economy.
What Factions are really behind the Trans Pacific Partnership?
Just like 20 years ago, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was debated and fought over, this trade deal appears to be gearing up for an even bigger battle. However, unlike ?NAFTA, the particulars of the TPP have been, at best, clandestine. If not for a series of?wikileaks?we would know far less than we do now about this?corporate handout disguised as a trade deal.
Another factor that surrounds this issue is the bi-partisan agreement that this trade deal would not be in the best interest of the nation. However, Tea Party Republicans who by and large are in favor of these types of trade deals don’t want President Obama to be the one with the discretion to shape it.
President Obama must not be allowed to fast track this legislation by signing off on it without passing it through Congress first for a vote.
One U.S. senator, Peter DeFazio (D – Ore.) has gone on record to say that this trade deal would be “incredibly destructive.” Senator DeFazio added:
While Congress, labor and environmental interests can’t see it, more than 600 corporations have access to it.
For example, one of the most controversial provisions within the TPP trade deal, if adopted, would allow private corporations to sue foreign governments for implementing polices that would adversely affect their expected profits. In addition, the TPP would create a downturn in wages in the developed nations like the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and others while in developing nations workers would find it impossible to improve their standard of living.
What’s alarming is that the TPP has been negotiated behind close doors with legislators not even being able to see what’s on the table while corporate lobbyists were welcomed with open arms in the drafting process. There has been enough concern generated that every citizen should demand from their elected officials to have this trade deal debated in the public for all of us to see.
What faction is truly behind the Trans Pacific Partnership? Does the term American Legislative Exchange Council?ring a bell??The story of ALEC which has been around now for some forty years has largely been untold. This is just the way this sinful organization has designed itself to be since its inception. ALEC has been a driver of influence in state governments across the nation and their efforts have been successful. In recent years, we have seen this organization throw vast amounts of money in places like Raleigh, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Phoenix, Arizona and Madison, Wisconsin.
These mongrels know that affecting government at the state level directly impacts our taxes, schools, roads, air and water quality, even our right to vote.
Politicians and lobbyists who make up the core of this organization’s enterprise have pulled this off in a clever and organized way. In doing this they have also done a masterful job of covering their tracks. What we have seen more recently is how decisions made at the local and state level have more impact on its citizens than the ones made in Washington or by the president.
What has been the underlying trend for years now is to put money into the states and back state politicians who in turn twist screws to influence the votes of their federally elected officials. Ronald Reagan was a big fan of ALEC. What has transpired over the years have been behind closed doors, made by politicians and corporate lobbyists. In most cases these deals are forged before they ever see the light of day on the state house floors.
The current speaker of the house thinks ALEC is a wonderful organization and has stated that publicly on more than one occasion. In short, the overall goal of ALEC is to change the laws at the state level to appease their deep-pocketed corporation donors and circumvent the will of the people. Are we seeing this play out in the present TPP trade deal? In the view of this writer, yes we are.
Should the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal be renamed Obama Trade?
First, who opposes this trade deal? This is a very interesting aspect of this whole issue. There are real trans-partisan coalitions that oppose the TPP. How rare is that in today’s political climate? There are honest factions on the right and honest factions on the left, and those who consider themselves centrist who vehemently oppose this legislation. There is a widely held view that these types free trade deals just don’t work.
It should be noted that just about every faction connected to the Obama administration is against the fast-tracking of the TPP. The labor movement overwhelmingly opposes this trade deal. The environmental groups like the Sierra Club?are sternly against the TPP. National progressive farm groups like the National Farmers Union?are against the passage of this deal. What is striking ?if Obama tries to move forward with?fast tracking?this legislation is just who would be his allies.
Support for this trade deal is coming from what has been one of the biggest enemies to President Obama since his taking office back in 2008. This makes for a very unsettling scenario to say the least. Big corporations and corporation-tied factions are huge supporters and shapers of the TPP.
The one faction that is 100% behind the TPP is ALEC.
It has been ALEC and its network of state to state influence that has been organizing on behalf of fast-tracking this free trade deal. That’s right, the same ALEC whose founder, Paul Weyrich, has been on record stating that high voter turn out is not a good thing. It is an overall narrative of radical right politics that as the voting turnouts grow higher their leverage as a minority party go down. ALEC has been working in secret to remake our laws and the way we govern ourselves through the lens of corporate America. It actually formed the foundation of Ronald Reagan’s bogus trickle down economics debacle.
These realities are so apparent today in the areas of voter suppression laws being passed under the guise of bogus voter fraud allegations. It was ALEC who involved itself in criminal justice laws to cow-tail to the gun lobby in the form of “stand your ground laws,” which made headlines last year in the Zimmerman case. However, ALEC’s core commitments have always been economics.
ALEC is responsible for the model legislation that is the TPP.
This is why its a big deal if the president decides to go forward with his powers to fast track the Trans Pacific Partnership legislation. There is going to come a time when major media starts to focus on this issue. The questions will arise as to who’s for it and who’s against it. The whole ALEC plan will be to get state governors and legislatures to beg congress to fast-track the bill. There will be undoubtedly state resolutions supporting its fast track, but this whole issue goes back to the core issues that were decided in the Buckley v. Valeo case.
?It introduced the idea that money counts as speech, and prohibited any restraints on unlimited spending in US election campaigns.
This has become, in the view of this writer, the cancer that plagues this country and once again threatens the circumvention of the will of the people concerning the TPP. What is even more dogmatic ?this cancer was spread even further through the Citizen Untied case, which basically cemented the Buckley case enacted some 30 years ago. This type of use of the courts has all but done away with our representative democracy in this country. Basically, these judicial decisions have turned our nation into a constitutional monarchy.
Constitutional monarchy?is a form of?democratic government?in which a nonpolitical?monarch?acts as?head of state?within the boundaries of a?constitution, whether written or?unwritten. (Source: Wiki)
Nowhere in our constitution does it say that money is protected by the free speech clause of the first amendment. The high-court in this country has been over-stepping its authority and in fact had no jurisdiction in the Buckley case to make the ruling it did, and in the most recent Citizen United case the action by the court, itself, constitutes unconstitutionally. This issue is the heart of the matter not only concerning this corporate handout disguised as a trade deal, but our politics as a whole.
The founding fathers of this country must be rolling in their graves to see corporations in this country being protected by the?14th amendment (Corporate person-hood) and money being protected by the?1st amendment (free-speech). ?These illegal acts are responsible for much of the sense of helplessness many Americans feel today towards government.
In closing, any fair study of the motivations of the founding fathers of our great nation was that they were extremely concerned about factions like ALEC forming. Their concerns were that a small group or faction of people could not be allowed to manipulate government, moreover to manipulate the government in their own interest instead of the people. Sadly, that is exactly where we are in this country today as a whole and nowhere is this cancer more apparent than in this free trade deal that has come to be known as the TPP. ALEC is the purest example of a faction. We, as a united people, must resist these types of factions because a failure to do so would cause a renaming of the United States of America to The Unites States Of Factions.
Stop The TPP fast track!
Edited by DH.
