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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a proposed free trade agreement that will literally sign | |
| the globe over to corporate control. | |
| And as it stands, we the people who will be most affected by this contract won't be able to see how our sovereignty and our planet is being raped and ransacked in the name of potential profit margin until it is too late. | |
| TPP negotiations have taken place under a freakish cloak of secrecy, denying all but a very few any input into the terms of the agreement. | |
| The only people who have had access to the negotiations are 600 advisers, none of whom work for Congress, and 500 of which are corporate lobbyists. | |
| Even though the press, the public and most members of Congress haven't seen details of the negotiations, the Obama administration hopes to fast-track the TPP by the end of this year. | |
| And the Obama administration has categorized the deal as classified information. | |
| Congressman Alan Grayson was permitted to review the document after filing a Freedom of Information Act. | |
| However, he was not allowed to comment on it. | |
| Here is what he did have to say about the TPP. | |
| The result will be soon evident to everybody. | |
| When the agreement does get released, you'll see massive giveaways of our sovereignty, massive efforts to undermine the middle class in this country, massive efforts to keep us from making the decisions that we need to do to make ourselves safe, to keep ourselves healthy, and to actually have the kind of life we want to have. | |
| Why? | |
| Because we've given the entire process over to special interests. | |
| It's no longer even properly called a trade agreement. | |
| It's an anti-sovereignty agreement. | |
| It has very little, if anything, to do with trade at this point. | |
| And the fact that something like this can be negotiated in secret for over three years is an indication of how far our standards have fallen. | |
| I can't remember any time earlier in our history when we would have done this. | |
| I can't remember any time earlier in history when we'd even make an effort to say that we couldn't have amendments on the floor of the House or the Senate about something that's so crucial to the way that we conduct our lives in the future. | |
| So what's so bad about the Trans-Pacific Partnership that it's being labeled as NAFTA on steroids? | |
| Well, the chapters that have been leaked reveal plans that would threaten public health, the environment... Are you an internet user? | |
| Of course you are. | |
| Well, forget about CISPA, SOPA, and PIPA. | |
| The TPP rolls all of those regulations up into one global agreement that totally circumvents domestic laws. | |
| File downloads could be criminalized and your Internet service provider would become a copyright | |
| enforcer, meaning your ISP address could monitor and police your every move using a three-strike | |
| system. | |
| After those three strikes, your access to the Internet could be cut off, including your | |
| own personal website, which could be deleted. | |
| And the TPP's rules on copyright infringement directly affect anyone who shares information | |
| via the Web. | |
| Fair use exceptions could be severely restricted, effectively crippling any sharing of news | |
| and videos via YouTube and other platforms. | |
| Pharmaceutical companies can institute longer patents that would preserve their monopolies | |
| and reduce access to affordable medications. | |
| The TPP includes foreign investor protections, which could help corporations offshore jobs. | |
| Negotiations include financial deregulation and loss of oversight that could lead to even worse financial meltdowns than what we've experienced. | |
| And perhaps the most crippling to sovereign countries, foreign corporations could pummel nations financially if that nation considers a domestic law that will curb expected future profits. | |
| For instance, if a country refuses to grow GMO crops, rather than respecting that nation's sovereignty, biotech giants can sue the country for cutting into their profits and then international tribunals could impose economic sanctions on that country until their ban on GMOs is lifted. | |
| This is a huge concern for citizens all over the world, so why aren't these contracts being made available for public review? | |
| Well, a group hopes to do a little crowdsourcing and expose this contract. | |
| Just Foreign Policy has launched a free TPP campaign to reward Wikileaks if it is able to make the negotiating text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership public. | |
| So far, the group has raised more than $50,000 from concerned citizens who refuse to acquiesce while corporate cronies decide our fate. | |
| We have got to call our representatives and demand that they find out what is inside the Trans-Pacific Partnership. | |
| We have to know what's in store for us so we can do something about it before it is too late. |
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