Julian Assange on the TPP: Secretive Deal Isn’t About Trade, But Corporate Control

[_Cursive]

 

[Sallubrious]

It doesn't get much bigger than this, this will be the end of sovereignty for every country that signs up.

I wonder who leaks all that stuff ?

Edited August 9, 2015 by Sally

[_Cursive]

This is VERY serious stuff. Freedom of speech, vitamins, internet - GONE. Abolished.
Fuck Statism.

[Sallubrious]

Yeah, it's total insanity Cursive.

It's being negotiated by lobbyists and lawyers in Washington. Basically a lobbyist is conduit used by corporations to bribe senators. They have laws that stop senators from directly taking bribes from corporations, so lobbyists do it for them. They set senators family members up in cushy jobs, buy cars for them and pay to put them through college etc.

It totally bypasses all democratic process and will establish a corporate dictatorship forever. I really think we have that now but after it's all finalised it will be official.

Julian talked about the tobacco companies as an example of what could go wrong. If they get their way (which they will by default if we sign this treaty) they will be able sue the Australian government for damages incurred from the plain packaging debacle -possibly billions of dollars in damages.

We will no longer be able form any legislation here that will protect our people or our environment. If any of our legislation impacts on a corporation profits they'll have the green light to sue for damages in international courts and bypass any local legislation.

We really shouldn't have that type of person drafting legislation behind closed doors.

It's one of the main reasons I hate tony abbott, he's all for it and the he hasn't seen it all yet. I feel like he's agreed to hold our heads down while the American corporations fuck us up the arse - forever.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Sally

[_Cursive]

The only reason this kind of tyranny can happen is through the government. In a free society, who could possibly make the TPP go ahead, who would enforce it? Nobody.
The government is a concept, it doesn't exist in objective reality. A tree exists, a forest doesn't, just a grouping of individual trees. The government is people, individuals that use force to get what they want.

Until we have a free society, we will continue to get this violent monopoly of force via Statism.

[Distracted]

A disagreement or amendment of the treaty will lead to world war 3.

[nothinghead]

violent monopoly of force via Statism

The TPP and other "free trade" agreements are really different to Statism, which would be a planned economy along the lines of what China would claim to have (/have had). I agree that state violence is something we should all be watching and moderating in any ways we can, but things like the TPP are about corporate control and profit-driven violence rather than fascist centralisation as we've known it in the twentieth century. Although (as you point out) those two can go hand in hand (i.e. the state authorising policies that are detrimental to democracy), imo it seems as though Western politics are heading the way of diminishing the role and authority of the state in favour of corporate-driven alliances and policies.

[_Cursive]

Corporations are Government (State) entities. Who makes the laws/rules? The government/State. Statism is monopoly of force, stop paying your taxes and see how non-violent the State is and how "free" you are.
Statism IS the only reason the TPP can happen. The State will pass the TPP, the State will enforce it.

No State = No monopoly of force. If some company or companies tried to enforce a TPP in a free society, who would enforce it? Who would abide by it? No one.

Edited August 11, 2015 by _Cursive

[nothinghead]

A corporation is a private entity (and a legal individual), which is maybe its most key distinction from the state which is (supposedly) a public entity. IMO it is increasingly corporations that dictate the law, rather than the state (who obviously officially facilitate legal issues) due to mutually beneficial agreements, kickbacks, and other ways of reinforcing structures of hierarchy. We only have to look at outcomes of public disasters like Nestle’s various privatisations of water, the Bhopal incident, or Deepwater Horizon to see that the state grants massive concessions to corporate responsibility when it isn't in the public interest.

What I’m suggesting about the waning of the power of the state can be seen in stuff like the rise of private security powers (where I live shop-cops have, as of recent years, been allowed powers comparable to state police. They can carry and use guns, detain citizens, and so forth, but are solely engaged with protecting commercial interests), privatisation (which has been strong in the Western world for decades now and is basically a process of yielding public wealth to private interests), and the assent of domestic and international policies to corporate rather than public interests. Of course if you stop paying taxes or run around damaging company property the state will come down on you, but to me these kinds of actions (esp. on a macro scale) feel more and more geared toward thje protection of high-end financial interests rather than being for public good.

You’re absolutely right that the state authorises stuff like the TPP, but what do they/we (as a public body) gain from it? “Free trade” agreements diminish the authority of the state as they cede power to corporations and financial interests. One of the concerns about the TPP’s large scale effects is its apparent enabling of corporations to sue our government. Under TPP scumbags like Phillip Morris may be able to sue the state (i.e. rip off our public finances) for things like using plain packaging on tobacco products. (In fact, Phillip Morris are engaged in arbitration with Australia currently due to an obscure loophole in an existing trade agreement). Other similar encroachments of corporate control over public issues seem likely under the TPP.

The situation now is that agreements like the TPP can exist without the state (the state is just a barrier to “free-er” trade) but states would find it difficult to compete internationally without the sort of profiteering “free trade” enables. Absolutely things like the TPP are enabled by the state, but to me that feels like an intermediary bureaucractic stage which doesn’t depend on a state making a decision about whether they’ll let it happen or not, but is about getting ducks lined up in terms of who gets what at the elite levels.

My point basically is that the state is only really useful to common interests as a regulatory body, but has come to base its regulatory practices on private rather than broadly public interests.

Edited August 16, 2015 by hashslingr

[_Cursive]

Corporations are a new institution. The came from within Statism. Statism has ALL the metaphorical guns (and real) pointed at the citizens, that is how they operate; (propaganda/indoctrination also) threatening with violence.

The corporations can ONLY exist with a monopoly of force backing them - The State. If we had a free society, with no governance, then anyone who threatened you with violence (TPP or otherwise) then you CAN use self defence legitimately and suffer no punishment from self-defence. The State protects evil, as it is a concept founded by immorality/evil.

Attack ANYTHING State controlled/operated and YOU will suffer the wrath of the State with violence.

Break a "law" and who punishes you? Government or the corporations?

I know we're arguing the same point, but fundamentally, the State is the primary ignition source of this evil, and it is evolving to what we see now.

[ThunderIdeal]

Splitting hairs. I think hashslingr is a bit closer to the mark but you're both right, and there's no argument about the relative position of public/personal/environmental interests...

[Sallubrious]

I see this corporate system a lot like the Borg from star trek, they just have to grow and grow until they swallow everything up and leave planets as desolated wastelands after they've stolen all their resources - at least that's what they are doing to this planet and the TPP is a step towards amalgamating them all into something even more like the Borg.

Without being plugged into their internet systems many people would be lost creatures unable to form a cohesive thought that isn't screened through the collective, a lot like when they disconnected 7 of 9 from the Borg wifi

I can see how they are gaining so much power, they (corporations) align their thoughts and motives to attain a common goal - in this case complete control of fucking everything. Us feeble humans are divided and fighting over trivial shit while we should be joining together and standing up to their evil.

Make Daisy summed it up well in his speech (sleeping with the enemy) he made at the festival of dangerous ideas in 2011.

A direct quote from his speech & some commentry from an ABC article.

We live in the era of the ascendancy of the corporation. Endowed with the rights of man and none of the responsibilities, they have proved corrosive to human values. Mike Daisey argues that working inside corporations is akin to collaboration in Vichy France, and that only when we have the courage to look at the truth about these flawed creations can we bring ethics back into this sphere of life.

He also coined a phrase to refer to people who give their souls to these entities in that speech. He called it sucking the corporate cock. By nature a corporation is not human, so he argued they are therefore inhumane by default.

It's hard to fault his logic given the likely outcome of this fiasco.

Edited August 12, 2015 by Sally

[bogfrog]

http://youtu.be/SuMHRTHt0KE

[Sallubrious]

^ Awesome!

Kia kaha

Power to the people

[toby]

I see this corporate system a lot like the Borg from star trek, they just have to grow and grow until they swallow everything up and leave planets as desolated wastelands after they've stolen all their resources - at least that's what they are doing to this planet and the TPP is a step towards amalgamating them all into something even more like the Borg.

Without being plugged into their internet systems many people would be lost creatures unable to form a cohesive thought that isn't screened through the collective, a lot like when they disconnected 7 of 9 from the Borg wifi

7 of 9 turned out ok.

[ThunderIdeal]

http://youtu.be/SuMHRTHt0KE

very cool. why does it only have seven views?

[DiscoStu]

If we had a free society, with no governance, then anyone who threatened you with violence (TPP or otherwise) then you CAN use self defence legitimately and suffer no punishment from self-defence. The State protects evil, as it is a concept founded by immorality/evil.

i disagree. corporations existing in a society free from state influence will hire private militias to protect/pursue their interests. personally i'd rather a state police force than a privately owned miltia, at least the state (i.e. politicians) are beholden to a certain degree to the people. corporations are not.