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whitewind

Top-secret, global corporate power grab

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Avaaz are running this campaign...

Details are leaking of a top-secret, global corporate power grab of breathtaking scope -- covering everything from a free Internet to health and environmental regulations, and we have just 4 days to stop it.

Democracy is on the march, with people rolling back corporate efforts to kill the Internet, our environment, health protections and more. So big business has a new plan: a giant global pact, with a court to enforce it, that is kept top secret for years (even from our legislatures!) and then unleashed in a blitzkrieg on democracy. Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Walmart and almost 600 other corporate lobbyists were all in on the final draft -- which could actually force governments to consider corporate profits above the public interest!

Word of this has just leaked and we have 4 days left in the talks. We need to send our governments running scared from this plan right now. Read more below and click on the link to sign, call and write -- if enough of us join, partners will project our petition counter on the walls of the meeting space in real time, so negotiators can see the opposition in their countries explode:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corporate_takeover_5/?byCQadb&v=17766

It is estimated that more than 600 corporate lobbyists have had a free hand to create the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership, yet most of our local elected officials have no idea what is being negotiated. The leaked draft would protect investors so much that it would undermine protections for air and water, reintroduce measures from the US Internet freedom attack, and create an international tribunal that would limit a government's ability to use the public interest to curb corporate profits. If adopted, countries would have to conform all their domestic laws and regulations to the TPP’s rules or face sanctions in an international court -- in effect, a corporate coup d’état.

Nobody outside the talks is permitted to have a copy of the text, so no one really knows the full content, and bureaucrats are cutting the press and public completely out. But there is hope: Australia is bucking against the international tribunal system, and New Zealand is objecting to the takeover of its medicine-pricing protections that keep drugs affordable for citizens. Massive public opposition, casting doubt over each country's ability to sell TPP at home, could derail the talks for good.

The US Senator, Elizabeth Warren in a recent speech said: “Corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters, because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people." Let’s stop the corporate takeover of our government. Sign the petition now, and forward widely -- the delegates and lobbyists are watching the wave of opposition grown in real time:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corporate_takeover_5/?byCQadb&v=17766

In the world most people everywhere want, corporations would be held accountable. They would protect their workers, avoid damaging risk and prevent pollution. We get there through democracy, by ensuring that the views and values of the world’s people, not special interests shape the decisions that govern us. The TPP is the single biggest threat to that future, and it’s up to us to stop it.

MORE INFORMATION

The Nation: "NAFTA on Steroids"

http://www.thenation.com/article/168627/nafta-steroids

The Guardian: "The Pacific free trade deal that's anything but free"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/27/pacific-free-trade-deal

Huffington Post: "Leak Cracks Open Trans-Pacific Partnership Scandal"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/leak-cracks-open-transpac_b_1594675.html

Reuters: "Lawmakers press for open Trans-Pacific trade talks"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/27/us-usa-congress-trade-idUSBRE85Q1MK20120627

TechDirt: "Hollywood Gets To Party With TPP Negotiators; Public Interest Groups Get Thrown Out Of Hotel"

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120131/23161417605/hollywood-gets-to-party-with-tpp-negotiators-public-interest-groups-get-thrown-out-hotel.shtml

Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Background and analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement"

https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

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this has been in the works for a while? i thought australia was all for it?

there's also a meeting in december headed by russia and china for global regulation of the internet, can't remember what the acronym is. the only disparaging things i've read are from news corp. publications and i generally treat them with disdain.

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Thanks for posting WW I hadn't heard of this until now.

Forgive me if I'm off the mark (I'm 3 parts pissed right now) but is this being played it the US congress ?

There is mention of "lobbyists" and a list of US or allied entities & corporations with their finger in the pie.

For anyone that doesn't know a "lobbyist" is someone used as a go between, mainly by corporations (but any entity can use these middlemen) and US congressmen.

The next time you hear the term "lobbyist" think "bribe arranger"

These "lobbyists" basically bribe congressmen by offering bribes so the congressmen will vote for their cause. Congressmen can't take bribes directly so the bribes come in the form cars, houses, real estate college scholarships etc all paid to family members or satellite companies run by said congressmen. These bribes get much much bigger and there is a sliding scale of need to greed so six figures is just a piss in the bucket.

Congressmen also employ their own "lobbyists" - food for thought. How can humanity compete against this endorsed systematic greed.

Perhaps we need a "Humanity corp" that can pool resources to bribe the greedy pricks and allow humanity to compete. The only thing that stop a corporation is another corporation :wave-finger:

The way I see it, my signature will not make any difference what so ever but if that is the last legal recourse I have I'll sign right now.

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The way I see it, my signature will not make any difference what so ever but if that is the last legal recourse I have I'll sign right now.

 

^This.

Yes, thanks WhiteWind I had no idea. But I'll give it me scribble and see what good it does.

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It's amazing to think that corporations have so much clout they can over-ride the laws of even a nation state. I'm largely anti-government but I do see democracy as being something that I can be a part of, but these corporations have no democratic principles or methods and they use material goods to gain more and more power ignoring anything I might want or feel is best for my community.

I fucking hate the monetary system and the global economy, not only is it socially destructive it is environmental suicide.

It's completely out of control and needs to be stopped NOW.

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Um this line

"Could actually force governments to consider corporate profits over public interest" Roflmao

I am pretty sure you don't have to force any government to consider corporate profits over public interest they have been doing that for years. They don't even try and hide it these days.

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http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/breaking_08_pledge_leaked_trade_doc

A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise by President Obama. A U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact between the United States and eight Pacific nations would allow foreign corporations operating in the U.S. to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal. The body would have the power to override U.S. law and issue penalties for failure to comply with its ruling. We speak to Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, a fair trade group that posted the leaked documents on its website. "This isn’t just a bad trade agreement," Wallach says. "This is a 'one-percenter' power tool that could rip up our basic needs and rights." [includes rush transcript]
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