Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and
ecology movement and an informed citizenry as the foundation for opposition to
empire, militarism, and wars. Here is the
link to the Index: http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/ See: Continental US Westward Expansion,
Genocide, Indigenous People of Americas, Pentagon ,
US
My blog:
It's the War Department
It's the War Department
WHO TELLS THE STORY?
“. . .the dominant interpretation of the past often enjoys
its status not because of its superior historical accuracy but because of its
proponents’ social power.” Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the
Violence of History (p. 276).
THE CHINA
THREAT
“Percentage of Americans who say China ‘can’t be trusted: 68.” (“Harper’s Index” January 2013). Where do you think that fear came from? US
encirclement of China would
not happen without the majority of people first having been persuaded by the
warriors to believe China
was an enemy, just as with Vietnam
and the “Axis of Evil.” Who’s next? --Dick
No. 3 and No. 4 at end
Contents #5 March 27, 2013
RESISTANCE
Gagnon: Oppose US/SK War Games
Public Citizen: Stop Trans-Pacific Partnership: Contact Your Congressman
Garate: Resistance to US Military Bases in S. Korea
Kalikasan People’s Resistance
to US Military Destruction of Environment in the Philippines
HISTORY
Chalmers Johnson
Steve Clemons, Tribute
Dick Bennett, Blowback
Conroy, et al., West Across the Pacific
And S.
America
Contents #6
Dick: From Plymouth
Fackler: Japan
Southeast
Asian Bases: Singapore
Gerson:
Peace Movement and Pivot
Beifus:
Transpacific Partnership (TPP)
Glazebrook: Empire Westward or Eastward? Africa
Contents
#7
Occupied
Pacific
Vitchek,
Missile Test Site, Kwajalein
Dibblin,
Marshall Islands
Occupying
E. Asia Surrounding China
Reed,
Ring Around China
NYT Editorial, Vandenberg AFB Missile Intercept Failure
Dick,
Commentary on NYT Editorial
Vandenberg
Protest Case Goes to US Supreme Court
Flowers
and Zeese, TPP: Trans-Pacific Partnership (see earlier newsletters)
Jones,
T-PP and TAFTA
Hightower,
T-PP
GOOGLE Search Results, VITCHEK, MISSILE
DEFENSE TEST SITE , MARSHALL
ISLANDS /KWAJALEIN
MISSILE RANGE
1.
Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site - Wikipedia, the ...
The
Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, commonly referred to as the
Reagan Test Site (formerly Kwajalein Missile Range
2.
Marshall Islands Map and Information, Map of Marshall ... - World Atlas
The
U.S. maintains a strong
military presence on Kwajalein , and from here controls
amissile testing range. The clear-blue waters
surrounding the Marshall
3.
KWAJEX HOW TO GET BY ON KWAJALEIN - Espo
US
ARMY Kwajalein Atoll / Kwajalein Missile
Range ( USAKA / KMR ): Military installation in the Republic of
the Marshall Islands Mission
4.
American Fiction – Kwajalein Missile Range, Captain
Yossarian And ...
Oct
13, 2007 - American Fiction – Kwajalein Missile Range , Captain Yossarian And
Robert Jordan ... camera and began
snapping photos of the enormous bay which serves as a missile range for the US
5.
Andre Vltchek - World Press Review
6.
East Asia & the Pacific - MERLN - National Defense
University
merln.ndu.edu › ... › Regional Policy Overviews:... Okinawa , Transient Nuclear
Aircraft Carrier Berth, Air and Missile Defense Task Force ...... Use of Kwajalein Atoll for Missile
Programs and Land Use Development .....Andre Vitchek. ... Council on Foreign
Relations; [Jan 13] A ZEN Approach to Post-2015: Addressing the Range of Perspectives
across Asia and the Pacific
REVIEW OF DIBBLIN:
BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Rights and Wrongs In the Marshall Islands
Day of
Two Suns: U.S.
By Jane Dibblin
Maps. 299 pages. New Amsterdam Books. $24.95 hard cover; $12.95 paperback.
Nuclear disarmament and human rights
are linked in ''Day of Two Suns,'' a cri de coeur intended to raise the
reader's consciousness about the plight of the island people living near the
American missile testing area in the Pacific Ocean .
An even larger aim of this impassioned book is to stop nuclear testing altogether by shutting down the Kwajalein Missile
Range Eastern Europe and accelerating discussions about
disarmament, the notions expressed in ''Day of Two Suns'' for making these
Pacific islands more pacific do not seem too far-fetched.
The sail-in protests against military
installations in the Marshall Islands
are described here - often in the voices of the islanders trying to return to
their endangered homes -by Jane Dibblin, a writer for the New Statesman in London
The United
States conducted nuclear tests after World War II on
Enewetak and Bikini atolls. There have been no
nuclear explosions above ground since 1963, but radioactivity remains and
almost immeasurable damage has been done to the health of the islanders. An
agreement provides for settlement of all claims arising out of the nuclear
tests on both atolls. Although the Marshall
Islands is now a sovereign republic rather than a
trusteeship, a subsidiary agreement allows the United
States continued use of Kwajalein Missile
Range California - without nuclear weapons -and splash down in
the forbidden Kwajalein test area.
Ms. Dibblin writes
that a review of Department of Energy data revealed that people still living on
Rongelap had depressed white-blood-cell counts and high levels of plutonium in
their urine. The Energy Department field report said it was safe for adults but
not children to return to the southern islands of the atoll; the northern
islands were too ''hot'' and food could not be harvested there. ''Amazed at the
idea that they should return without their children,'' the author notes, ''the
people of Rongelap stayed on Mejato.''
Although the tone of
''Day of Two Suns'' is hortatory and some of its language is shrill - ''four
extra islands have now been turned into pin cushions for incoming missiles for
the expanded 'Star Wars' program'' - the basic facts in the book check out
against recent scientific reports. A similar alarm was sounded in another book,
''Micronesia Micronesia
COLD WAR II: Occupying
Pacific and E. Asia to Surround China
“Ring around China
“The
United States Air Force will dramatically expand its military presence across
the Pacific this year, sending jets to Thailand ,
India , Singapore and Australia Carlisle ,
chief of U.S. Air Force operations in the Pacific. Carlisle gives a straightforward statement of US transfer of military power from the Middle
East to the Pacific and E. Asia to ring China
“just as the West did to the Soviet Union back
in the Cold War.” --Dick
EDITORIAL,
The New York Times
A Failure to Intercept
By THE
EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: July 24,
2013 [also appeared in the Arkansas
·
After 30 years of research and an estimated
$250 billion investment, the Pentagon’s defense program against
intercontinental ballistic missiles from adversaries like Iran and North Korea California failed to hit its target over the Pacific Ocean , the third consecutive dud. The military
has tested the ground-based midcourse defense system 16 times; only eight were
successful, the last in 2008.
Connect With Us on
Twitter
For
Op-Ed, follow@nytopinion and
to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow@andyrNYT.
One might expect the
record to be near perfect since the tests are rigged, conducted in what the
program’s director, Vice Admiral James Syring of the Navy, calls a “controlled,
scripted environment.” The Pentagon is doing a review to determine the cause of
the latest failure. But whatever the cause, it is apparent that the program’s
weaknesses go beyond this case.
Two studies — one by
the National Academy of Sciences released in September and another by a task
force of the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board in 2011 — have expressed doubts
about whether the technology to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles
can ever be truly reliable and whether the program is worth the cost. Some
experts describe its technical core as shattered.
Senator Richard
Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois, raised a lot of the right questions when Vice
Admiral Syring testified on last Wednesday before the Senate appropriations
subcommittee on defense. Mr. Durbin noted that the system’s track record “has
not improved over time” and wondered how the Pentagon could be confident
defenses will work when tests are conducted against intermediate range missiles
but not the longest range and fastest missile, the intercontinental ballistic
missile, which could reach the United
States
Predictably, many
Congressional Republicans blame the problems on President Obama and budget cuts
supported by the Democrats. But experts say design flaws crept into the program
during the George W. Bush administration and the problems were compounded by a
rush to deploy the system before tests were run. Along with the Pentagon, many
Republicans are now pushing for more missile defense tests as well as the
development of 14 more ground-based interceptors (for a total of 44 at sites in
California and Alaska
The North Korean and
Iranian missile programs are a threat that the United States
A
version of this editorial appeared in print on July 25, 2013, on page A26 of
the New York
Commentary by Dick Bennett: Let’s ask a few questions. When does a military program fail? That depends upon its purpose. Is the
program really to defend “against intercontinental ballistic missiles from
adversaries like Iran and North Korea US , and their
missiles are clearly for their own defense against our certain, devastating
nuclear missile capability (theTrident submarines off shore
of NK and Iran Iraq Iran
So what is Vandenberg AFB doing? What are the motives of the generals and
executive branch officials in rocket practice westward over the Pacific? They intend to threaten and intimidate the
remaining evil nations? That has
failed; NK continues to build and test successfully bombs and missiles
understandably in defense. Or do US
officials and generals seek to threaten the US
itself, as in Orwell’s Oceania, firing off missiles toward Asia, performing
joint exercises with S. Korea, ringing China
Do
they think it would never occur to the public to ask, given the massive
destruction the US US US
Even comedians see the rich vein of
absurdity. Not only the national Academy of Sciences
but the pentagon’s Defense Science Board doubt whether the missiles lobbed
westward into the Pacific will ever work, but the blllions continue to flow,
and the missiles continue toward Asia . It doesn’t matter whether they work or
not. The enemies are shown who has
will, who is dominant. It’s like the
scene in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, in
which a European warship is lobbing shells into the jungle. And it’s a fine jobs program: putative enemies offer no end of demand.
And an equally rich opportunity for
congressional ambitions: the Republicans
drum for more weapons and blame
President Obama for the failures, who blame the preceding Republicans for
design flaws, and both keep the war profiteers joyful.
Keep focus on the threat to US. Keep the public under tight rein without
appearing to do so. Guard must be
everywhere against every enemy threatening every base and household, and the New York Times/Arkansas Democrate-Gazette demands
indignantly that the flawed anti-ballistic missile, built and deployed by both
Parties, be repaired and then sent westward into the Pacific.
But North
Korea , Iran ,
and Russia and China
VANDENBERG AFB PROTEST CASE
TO SUPREME COURT
The Supreme Court will hear
the government’s case against longtime Catholic Worker activist, Dennis
Apel. Apel was convicted of violating
ban and bar orders, an appeals court overturned them, and the government is
trying to have them reinstated. See
background article from Santa Barbara See
Desert Voices, Newsletter of Nevada Desert
3 ON
TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP
Stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Global Revolt
Against Corporate Domination
Wednesday, 10 July 2013 09:20
(Photo: Caelie_Frampton / Flickr)
We are in the midst of an epic battle between the people of the
world and transnational corporations. Wealthy governments and corporations are
merging in a global system in which private corporations have absolute power
over your life. This is a battle the people can win and when we do it will show
that we can defeat corporate power on issue after issue.
The 1999 battle in Seattle United
States
The Obama administration is currently mired in an ambitious
project to accomplish both the continuation of the WTO’s agenda and a
restructuring of NAFTA in ways that place corporate property rights over
protection of people and the environment. Using the friendly term,
‘partnership,’ the administration is negotiating a sweeping free trade
agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which could potentially involve
the entire Pacific Rim as well as a sister agreement with European nations.
This is being done largely in secret and in a way that subverts the democratic
process.
Former US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who now has a lucrative
job in the private sector advising transnational corporations for the law firm Gibson Dunn, said that if people knew what
was in the TPP, there would be no way to get it signed into law. As he told one interviewer, if the text were made public
negotiators would be walking away from the negotiations because they would be
very unpopular.
The new US Trade Representative, Obama’s classmate Michael Froman
who worked at CitiGroup, and the more than 600 corporate advisers involved in
writing the TPP, have direct access to the text of the treaty, but members of
Congress have only limited access and the public and media are excluded. Recent
calls for transparency by members of Congress have been denied, so the extent of what we know comes from leaks.
We do know that the TPP is less about trade and more about
entrenching corporate property rights. It will establish a judicial system that
gives corporations greater power than sovereign nations and bypasses the
democratic process. The TPP will affect the global economy so that corporations
control all aspects of our lives from wages, food safety, the price of
medications and our rights to clean water and air to Internet freedom and more.
The breadth of this corporate power grab may also be its downfall
because it is an opportunity for solidarity. A broad coalition of organizations
from the entire North
American continent in solidarity with groups in other Pacific Rim nations are working together to demand
transparency and a democratic process for the TPP. These groups are calling for
an end to the failed model of free trade and for a new type of trade that honors
the rights of people and the planet.
Corporate Property Rights and Profits Come First
Protests in Seattle US
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and it’s sister, the Trans-Atlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP, known as “TAFTA”), are the Obama
administration’s response to the failure of the WTO. These two treaties will
aim to not only give multinational corporations all of the deregulation and
legal rights they sought through the WTO, but are intended to go even further.
With the inclusion of Canada
and Mexico
In 2008, candidate Obama said on
multiple occasions that one of the first things he would do as president would
be to ‘fix’ NAFTA so that there was greater protection of worker rights and the
environment and so that corporations would not be able to undermine laws that
are in the public’s interest. Perhaps his true intentions weremistakenly revealed by
a senior economic adviser to the campaign, Austan Goolsbee, who informed the
Canadian government that Obama’s rhetoric on NAFTA should be understood as
“more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.”
After his inauguration, Obama dropped any action on trade
including negotiation of the TPP which had started under President Bush. Then
he announced in late 2009 that the US would participate in
trade talks with Pacific Rim countries. Since
then, there have been 17 rounds of negotiations, and the 18th is
scheduled for this month in Malaysia
The general tone of the TPP negotiations is typical of the US US
As an example of harmful policies, through leaked text it is known
that the TPP gives pharmaceutical and medical device corporations the ability
to ‘evergreen’ their
patents and prevents governments from negotiating fair prices. This keeps the
price of medications and other necessary health goods high and prevents
generics. Similar provisions in other free trade agreements raised the cost of
medications by 20 percent or more resulting in a negative impact on public
health. These provisions will make life-saving medications unaffordable and
increase disease and death, particularly in poorer countries, all so that
corporations can make unreasonable profits. They will also undermine top public
health systems in Japan and Australia
Another example is the investor rights provision which will allow
‘foreign’ investors to sue a nation if their laws interfere with trade,
allowing corporations to sue in trade tribunals for loss of “expected profits.”
This means a corporation will be able to sue a nation if a labor, environmental
or consumer protection law decreases the profits the corporation planned on
making. The trade tribunal will be staffed by judges who are mainly corporate
lawyers on temporary leave from their corporate jobs. Essentially the United States
Will this legal right be abused? It already is. Kristen Beifus of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition tells us that a corporation, Lone Pine
Resources which is incorporated in Delaware Calgary
and does all of its business in Canada Quebec
Richard McIntyre, who serves as the US Trade
Representative for the Green Shadow Cabinet, states that agreements
such as the TPP are not really about trade at all. They are designed to protect
the property rights of foreign investors in a way that works outside of the
traditional legal system. Corporations can make claims against governments in a
way that bypasses the democratic process. In effect, this will give a
corporation the power to force a country, particularly smaller countries, to
change its laws. Countries will learn that they cannot pass laws in the public
interest without expensive litigation.
Suppose a country has an environmental or labor protection law in
place. Under the TPP, a corporation will be able to sue that country for loss
of expected profits if the law means it must do things like pay higher wages,
comply with work safety provisions clean up toxics in the environment or handle
its waste safely. The country will then face a choice of paying millions of
dollars or changing its law. Poor countries, such as Vietnam
McIntyre concludes that the current free trade process is really a
debate about property rights and corporations having more rights than people.
Although there are labor and environmental standards in free trade agreements,
McIntyre calls these a “hollow
victory” because they are very vague and there is no way to
enforce them.
We Can Stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership
We can stop the TPP. There is enough experience with corporate
trade agreements that we now know they can be stopped. The keys are: letting
people know what is in them because their contents are unpopular; and second,
getting people active to express their disapproval so the agreement becomes so
unpopular no elected official wants to be tied to it.
In the past, when trade agreements were under negotiation, they
were discussed in the mass media and the text of the agreements was public. The
Office of the US Trade Representative published the text of agreements on their
website, even as the treaty was being negotiated.
Now that many people have caught on to the fact that free trade
agreements have negative consequences, transparency has ended. The current text
of the TPP is only available to the trade representatives and the 600 corporate
advisers who are involved in writing it. They have real-time access to the text
on their computers. Members of Congress must apply to see the text and when
they are granted access, it is at the ‘read and retain’ level only, and they
are sworn to secrecy. This means they can view it in a private room but cannot
bring staff with them or take notes or photos of the text. And the media has
been almost completely silent on the TPP. Stories are just starting to be printed because
now that more people know about the TPP, the media loses its credibility if it
doesn’t report on it.
There have been requests for more transparency. Civil society
groups wrote letters to the trade representatives, people signed petitions and members
of Congress have
called for more access to the text. However, it was leaked that a Memorandum of Understanding was written into the TPP which
“commits the countries not to declassify documents related to the negotiations
for ‘Four years from entry into force of the TPP agreement or, if no agreement
enters into force, four years from the close of the negotiations.’”
Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote the
candidate for US Trade Representative, Michael Froman, asking for public
transparency of the text. That request has not been granted. After 8 months of
negotiations and tremendous public pressure, Representative Alan Grayson was
permitted to view some of the TPP documents. His comment: “The TPP is nicknamed
‘NAFTA on steroids.’ Now that I’ve read it, I can see why. I can’t tell you
what’s in the agreement, because the U.S. Trade Representative calls it
classified. But I can tell you two things about it. 1) There is no national
security purpose in keeping this text secret. 2) This agreement hands the
sovereignty of our country over to corporate interests. 3) What they can’t afford
to tell the American public is that [the rest of this sentence is classified].”
Why so secret? Public awareness and pressure have prevented the
completion of at least 14 trade agreements over
the past decades. The keys to stopping these agreements have been public
awareness and protest. As Beifus says, “We haven’t passed a trade agreement in
Congress because when people get in the streets, it becomes politically
unsavory.”
Beifus is an organizer of a cross-border coalition of advocacy groups from Canada , the US
and Mexico Washington Pacific
Rim countries in order to build solidarity.
The TPP offers a real opportunity for solidarity not just between
countries that will be affected, but also between groups that are working for a broad variety of issues: food safety, health care,
internet freedom, worker rights, the environment and more. Coalitions of groups
that support fair trade rather than free trade exist in the US
We are involved in a campaign, organized through PopularResistance.org in
cooperation with groups that have been focused on trade for years, calledFlushtheTPP.org. The
goals of FlushtheTPP.org are to help people see that our
concerns are united by the TPP and that we can stop the TPP by working
together.FlushtheTPP.org is an action-oriented website that
provides the tool people need to organize actions locally. (Sign up on FlushtheTPP.org to get involved.)
Actions are designed with two initial goals: To bring greater
awareness to the public about the TPP and to prevent Congress from granting the
White House “Fast Track” (a.k.a. Trade Promotion Authority). In
July, we kicked off #TPPTuesdays for solidarity visibility actions –
holding signs or other creative ways to get attention and passing out
literature about the TPP. In August and through the autumn, people will be
encouraged to focus on members of Congress and Fast Track.
Fast Track was first passed under President Nixon in the 1970’s.
It gives the president the ability to negotiate and sign trade agreements, and
Congress can then vote on the treaty after it has been signed. This subverts
the Constitution as under
the Commerce Clause, Congress has the power “To regulate Commerce
with foreign Nations.” Fast Track prevents the democratic process which
includes the checks and balances of public hearings, expert testimony and
amendments. Retiring Senator Baucus, who consistently represents big
business interests, has made it his personal mission to deliver Fast Track to
President Obama.
Negotiations of the TPP were expected to wind down this fall;
however, because of conflicts between the countries involved and with Japan planning to join the talks at the July
round in Malaysia
It will be interesting to see what happens when Japan Japan Japan
One of the keys to successfully stopping corporate trade
agreements is for people to broaden the fissures between countries by
highlighting why the agreement will be bad for their country. Protesters
outside of negotiations, in the media and on the web highlighting how sections
of these agreements will hurt their people make overcoming fissures between
countries difficult.
Ushering in a New Era of Fair Trade
If the TPP, and its sister TTIP, are prevented from going forward
as intended, this could bring in a new era of fair trade that respects the
rights of people and the planet. Free trade agreements have been proven to be
flawed models for trade because in addition to accelerating the downward trends
in worker rights and environmental protection, they also increase the US
The 2012 trade data reveal
that for countries with which the US US US
These numbers alone should tell us that the TPP is not really about
trade. It is actually a back door for corporations to get laws passed that are
in their favor and that could not pass Congress under a democratic process.
McIntyre refers to ‘Free Trade” as ‘De-regulated International Commerce.’ Most
of the trade in these trade agreements is happening through global corporate
supply chains that go wherever the resources and labor are the cheapest.
Not only does de-regulated trade harm the environment by allowing
corporations to settle where environmental laws are the most lax and making new
laws difficult to pass, but it leads to hundreds of thousands of jobs leaving
the US US
One group of workers at a paper mill in the Northwest whose jobs were sent overseas visited
the new paper mill and found that not only had they lost their jobs, but all of
their hard-won concessions for worker rights and environmental safety were also
lost in the transfer.
This is why there is an opportunity for global solidarity to stop
this flawed model of trade. Important questions that must be answered going
forward are why corporations are given rights that people don’t have and why
corporations are not held liable for the harmful effects of mines and factories
in their global supply chains. It is time to put a pause on trade agreements
that further the free trade model until these and other issues are sorted out.
Fair trade coalitions are calling for sensible trade processes
that are grounded in transparency and democracy. This means that all groups
affected by the agreement must be involved in the negotiations in a fair and
equitable way. And fair trade means that the rights of people and the planet
come first, before corporate profits with people empowered to enforce those
requirements.
One step in this direction is a bill introduced by Senator Sherrod
Brown called “The 21st Century Trade and Market Access Act.” This act contains
binding requirements for trade deals to protect food safety, the environment
and workers as well as mechanisms to enforce these requirements. Nobel
economist Joseph Stiglitz recently wrote that
trade deals should follow three principles:
1.
They
should be symmetrical so that requirements are applied to all parties involved.
2.
National
interests should have higher priority than commercial interests.
3.
The
negotiations should be transparent.
Stiglitz warns us though that “the US
Other steps are being taken at the local
level to encourage
fair trade. These include raising community awareness about the importance of
fair trade, increasing local access to fair trade items and passing resolutions
to affect government procurement policies.
All of these steps are important. We believe that a high priority
step right now is to join together in solidarity to stop the TPP, and after we
win that, to stop the TTIP. Negotiations of the TTIP are
just beginning this month with the first round in Washington , DC US
Visit FlushtheTPP.org.
Take the pledge.
Start planning events in your community to expose the TPP. Important dates to
keep in mind are the 18th round of negotiations starting on July
15 (a great time to hold solidarity actions) and the 19th round
of negotiations which is expected this September somewhere in North
America . We will work to mobilize a large presence at that round.
Sign up to receive FlushtheTPP.orgemail
action updates and pledge
to join the campaign.
This is a campaign that we can win that will place us firmly on
the path to a fair trade future; and a victory on which we can build the global
revolt against corporate power. Join this historic turning point in the effort
to end the rule of money and transfer power to the people.
You can hear the interview with Richard McIntyre and Kristen
Beifus on “Taking Corporate Power Out of Our Trade Agreements” on Clearing the FOG.
This article was first
published on Truthout and any reprint or reproduction on any other website must
acknowledge Truthout as the original site of publication.
MARGARET
FLOWERS AND KEVIN ZEESE
Kevin Zeese JD and Margaret Flowers MD co-host
ClearingtheFOGRadio.org on We Act Radio 1480 AM Washington, DC and on Economic
Democracy Media, co-direct It's Our Economy and are organizers of the
Occupation of Washington, DC. Their twitters are @KBZeese and @MFlowers8.
RELATED STORIES
By Robert Naiman, Truthout |
News Analysis
If
You Thought What ALEC and the Koch Brothers Are Doing Was Bad ...
Mitch Jones, Food and Water Watch
Jones writes: "Both of these proposed trade agreements - [TPP and TAFTA] - threaten U.S. food safety rules, infringe upon public and private land with an increased push for fracking, undermine efforts to develop local food systems and increase the privatization of water systems."
READ MORE
Mitch Jones, Food and Water Watch
Jones writes: "Both of these proposed trade agreements - [TPP and TAFTA] - threaten U.S. food safety rules, infringe upon public and private land with an increased push for fracking, undermine efforts to develop local food systems and increase the privatization of water systems."
READ MORE
JIM HIGHTOWER, “THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP IS NOT
ABOUT FREE TRADE. IT’S A CORPORATE COUP
D’ETAT—AGAINST US.” The Hightower Lowdown (August 2013).
"The less a
statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag." -- Kin Hubbard
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In This Issue
Both Bush & Obama have
kept negotiations secret about this nuclearized NAFTA
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not
about free trade. It's a corporate coup d'etat--against us!
ALSO
IN THIS ISSUE:
Do Something!
Recent Lowdowns
Both Bush &
Obama have kept negotiations secret about this nuclearized NAFTA
The Trans-Pacific
Partnership is not about free trade. It's a corporate coup d'etat--against us!
In 2002, it was reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had told a friend an
amusing tale about our man George W. Bush. It seems that the two of them and
French President Jacques Chirac had gotten into an economics discussion, after
which George supposedly confided to Tony that he was decidedly unimpressed with
Jacques' views: "The problem with the French," Bush scoffed, "is
that they don't have a word for 'entrepreneur.'"
W's head has always been a no-fly-zone for
factual reality. However, what would boggle his mind even more than the fact
that we Americans filched that word from the French, is the reality that
government is not quite the entrepreneur-devouring ogre (Mon dieu! George,
another French word!) that Bush's cartoonish dogma paints it to be. Actually,
government-at-its-best can be an entrepreneur's buddy. One surprising place to
see this buddyship at work is in one of the most mundane of government offices:
Procurement (i.e., the Department of Buying Stuff).
Where does your mayor, school board, governor,
or any other "public shopper" go to purchase fixtures, food,
furniture, ferns, and whatnot? Where I live, various agencies have Buy Austin,
Buy Texas, Buy American, Buy Green, Buy Sweatshop-Free, and other targeted
policies that apply our tax dollars to our values. This sensible idea has swept
across the country, most likely including where you live, and these agency
purchases add up to a big financial boost for start-ups, independents,
women-owned, and other homegrown enterprises. Rather than buying everything
from Walmart or China
Stop making sense
My administration is
committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will
work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of
transparency, public participation, and collaboration. ----President Obama, January 26,
2009 Memo to Executive branch officials
Imagine the uproar if President Obama and
Congress tried to pass a bill to outlaw such "preferential
procurement" policies, summarily cancelling our democratic right to decide
where to make public purchases. I'd get pretty PO 'd,
wouldn't you? And what if they also proposed that foreign corporations in Brunei , New
Zealand , Vietnam
The American people would never stand for this
brazen affront to our sovereignty, so I can assure you that Obama and Congress
will definitely NOT be proposing any such thing. Not directly, that is.
Instead, their hope is to tiptoe it around us.
The nullification of our people's right to direct expenditures of our own tax
dollars is but one of the horror stories being quietly packed into a
political-and-economic bombshell benignly labeled TPP --the Trans-Pacific
Partnership.
This thing is a supersized and nuclearized NAFTA,
the 1994 trade scam rammed through Congress by Bill Clinton, Wall Street's
Robert Rubin, and the entire corporate establishment. They promised that the
"glories of globalization" would shower prosperity across our land.
They lied. Corporations got the gold. We got the shaft--thousands of factories
closed, millions of middle-class jobs went south, and the economies of hundreds
of towns and cities (including Detroit US grain traders like ADM dumped corn into Mexico
Twenty years later, the corporate gang that
stuck us with NAFTA is back, hoping to fool us with an even more destructive
multinational deal. (This calls for another immortal quote from George W:
"Fool me once, shame on--shame on you. Fool me--you can't get fooled
again." Well, you know what he meant).
This time we really must pay attention,
because TPP is not just another trade deal. First,
it is massive and open-ended. It would hitch us immediately to 11 Pacific Rim
nations (Australia , Brunei , Canada ,
Chile , Japan , Malaysia ,
Mexico , New Zealand , Peru ,
Singapore , and Vietnam ), and its door would remain wide open to
lure China , Indonesia , Russia US
The other two dozen chapters amount to a
devilish "partnership" for corporate protectionism. They create
sweeping new "rights" and escape hatches to protect multinational
corporations from accountability to our governments... and to us. Here are a
few of TPP's provisos that would make our daily lives riskier, poorer, and less
free:
Food safety. Any of our government's food safety regulations (on
pesticide levels, bacterial contamination, fecal exposure, toxic additives,
GMOs, non-edible fillers, etc.) that are stricter than "international
standards," as most are, could be ruled as "illegal trade
barriers." Then our government would have to revise our consumer protections
to comply with the weaker global standards. Also, our government could no
longer ban meat imports that don't meet our safe-to-eat laws, as long as the
exporting nation simply claims that its inspection system is
"equivalent" to ours. In addition, food labeling laws we rely on
(organic, country-of-origin, animal-welfare approved, GMO-free, etc.) would
also be subject to challenge as trade barriers.
Fracking. Our Department of Energy would lose its authority to
regulate exports of natural gas to any TPP nation. This would create an
explosion of the destructive fracking process across our land, for both foreign
and US corporations could export fracked gas from America
Jobs. US corporations would get special foreign-investor
protections to limit the cost and risk of relocating their factories to
low-wage nations that sign onto this agreement. For example, an American
corporation thinking about moving a factory would know it is guaranteed a
sweetheart deal if it exports to a TPP nation like Vietnam Vietnam
Drug prices. Big Pharma would be given more years of monopoly pricing
on each of their patents and be empowered to block distribution of cheaper
generic drugs. Besides artificially keeping everyone's prices high, this would
be a death sentence to many people suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis, and other treatable diseases in impoverished lands. The deal
would also restrict the rights of our government to negotiate with drug giants
to get lower consumer prices with bulk purchases, as Medicare and Medicaid do
in the US
Banksters. Wall Street and the financial giants in other TPP
countries would make out like bandits: The deal explicitly prohibits
transaction taxes (such as the proposed Robin Hood Tax here) that would shut
down super-rich speculators who have repeatedly triggered financial crises and
economic crashes around the world; it restricts "firewall" reforms
that separate consumer banking from risky investment banking (thus prohibiting
Congress from reinstating the much needed Glass-Steagall firewall in our
country); it could roll back reforms that governments adopted to fix the
extreme bank-deregulation regimen that caused Wall Street's 2007 crash; and it
provides a backdoor escape from national rules that would limit the size of
"too-big-to-fail" behemoths. These extreme provisions would be
enforceable by the banks themselves--TPP empowers them to force governments
either to repeal reform laws or to compensate banks with taxpayer money for
"losses" they say are caused by reforms.
Internet freedom. Thanks to public rebellion, corporations hoping to lock up
and monopolize the internet failed in Congress last year to pass their
repressive "Stop Online Piracy Act." However, they've slipped SOPA's
most pernicious provisions into TPP. Corporate-created content, for example,
would be given copyright protection for a stunning 120 years! The deal would
also transform internet service providers into a private, Big Brother police
force, empowered to monitor our "user activity," arbitrarily take
down our content, and cut off our access to the internet. To top that off,
consumers could be assessed mandatory fines for non-commercial, small-scale
copying--like sending your mom a recipe you got off of a paid site.
Public services. TPP rules would limit how governments regulate such public
services as utilities, transportation, and education, including restricting
policies meant to ensure broad or universal access to those essential needs.
One especially insidious rule says that member countries must open their
service sectors to private competitors, which would allow the corporate
provider to cherry pick the profitable customers and sink the public service.
Also, corporations from any TPP nation must be allowed to bid on contracts to
provide public services in the US
A corporatocracy
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's superb research and activist group, Global
Trade Watch, correctly calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership "a corporate
coup d'etat." Indeed, nations that join must conform their laws and rules
to TPP's strictures, effectively supplanting US
Well, you might think, we'll still have our
courts to redress corporate misuse of TPP's provisions. Uh... no. One of the
deal's chapters creates a monstrous monkey wrench called the "Investor-State
Dispute Resolution" system. In this private, supra-legal
"court," corporations are empowered to sue TPP governments over environmental,
health, consumer, zoning, or any other public policies that the corporations
claim are either undermining their TPP "rights" or diminishing--get
this--their "expected future profits."
This elevates thousands of private,
profit-seeking entities to the legal status of sovereign nations. Under the
investor-state system, a smaller version of which was included in NAFTA and
other free-trade schemes, the deck is stacked for corporate interests. Cases
are decided behind closed doors by three-person international tribunals of
private attorneys who often have a glaring corporate bias. The same lawyers who
represent corporations in these cases routinely switch over in other cases to
serve as "judges." Holy revolving door!
These "tribunalists" are not accountable
to any electorate, and their decisions are final--there's no appeal to a real
court. If a corporation wins a case, taxpayers of the government being sued
lose, for they must pony up cash to compensate the corporation for its
"loss" of profit.
At present, even before the elephantine TPP is
imposed on us, corporations are demanding a total of nearly $14 billion just in
cases brought under free trade arrangements that include the US
Shhhhh!
Why isn't this a screaming, bold-type,
take-to-the-streets, call-out-the-dogs, roll-out-the-guillotine news story and
political issue? Because the corporate and political powers (apologies again
for redundancy) definitely don't want us to kick up a fuss that could squirrel
their little surprise, so they've thrown a suffocating blanket of secrecy over
the whole process.
TPP negotiations were initiated back in 2008
by none other than President Can't-Be-Fooled-Again. (Okay, one more Bushism:
"I think--tide turning. See, as I remember--I was raised in the desert,
but tides kind of--it's easy to see a tide turn.") The incurious mass
media, however, didn't see the story then and have since devoted zero
investigative energy to it. They've accepted the official cover story that the
deal is just another yawner of a trade agreement, so pay no mind--even as 17
rounds of closed-door negotiations have zipped under their radar.
Obama--who pledged in 2008 to avoid sneaky,
NAFTA-style, corporate sell-outs--promptly surrendered to the global schemers
once in office. Team Obama goosed up the TPP negotiating process and has gone
to extremes to make it more furtive than Bush did. In 2010, all nations
involved even signed a formal pledge to keep details of their deliberations
from the public--and to keep documents related to the deal under cover until
four years after the process is completed.
WARNING--BUCKLE UP BEFORE READING THIS: Last year, Obama's top trade rep, Ron Kirk, declared that
locking out the people is necessary, because the deal's details would outrage
Americans and spook Congress from rubber stamping it. In short, to win public
approval of TPP, the Obamacans say they must keep it hidden from the public.
Where, you might ask, is Congress? In the
dark.
Even though the Constitution says Congress has
exclusive authority "to regulate commerce with foreign nations," the
White House has repeatedly rejected pretty-please requests by lawmakers merely
to attend negotiations as observers, and congressional leaders have not been
allowed to review, much less have any meaningful input on, the draft texts of
TPP's 29 chapters. (Update: In June, our progressive friend, Rep. Alan Grayson,
who has been a tenacious critic of the shady process, was finally granted a
peek at the full draft--though not allowed to take a copy. "It's easy to
understand why [it's] been kept secret," Grayson says, confirming
that "It puts corporate interests ahead of American interests.")
The corporate team
There are, however, 600 or so
"outsiders" who've been welcomed inside to help write TPP. They are
handpicked members of the 16 Industry Trade Advisory Committees--practically
all of them corporate executives. From AT&T to Zippo Manufacturing, and
from the Koch boys' empire to Walmart's billionaires, corporate powers are cheek
to jowl with the government negotiators to make sure the final document serves
their very special interests.
In addition, Obama has now named one of their
own to replace Kirk:Michael Froman, an Obama classmate in law school and a protege
ofRobert Rubin in the Clinton
Will the new trade representative finally
apply Obama's 2009 pledge of "transparency, public participation, and
collaboration" to these momentous negotiations? Sen. Elizabeth Warren
asked Froman this very question in June, offering three specific suggestions
for shining a little of democracy's beneficial light on the process. "Mr.
Froman's response was clear," Sen. Warren later reported: "No,
no, no."
Obama & Co. can shut us out of the room,
but they can't consummate the deal there. While he wants to wrap up formal
negotiations by October, he then has to get Congress's okay. This means
imploring the same members he's been stiffing to sign America
How will he get them to do that? As Clinton
and Bush did in previous free trade hustles, he'll try to use a rush-rush
legislative procedure called "fast track," while TPP's boosters
simultaneously envelop the public debate in a disorienting fog of corporate PR.
The White House and its corporate allies will
also mount a heavy-handed lobbying campaign to shove their package into law.
Yet, even with all of the above, by no means is passage assured--or likely.
Start with fast track.
The very term suggests a railroad job, which is apt, for it's a little-used,
anti-democratic maneuver to choo-choo a bill right over Congress. Under this
procedure, Obama is allowed to sign TPP before Congress votes. Then he writes
an "implementing bill" to make US
The idea is to force members to swallow the
whole deal in one, hurried, up-or-down vote. However, Congress first has to
authorize the White House's use of the fast track ploy--and that's very iffy.
Republican leaders have shown they're unwilling to give anything to Obama.
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are not likely to grease the skids for this
stinker of a deal.
The people's team
But the fundamental problem for the deal's
boosters is not procedure, it's content: TPP stinks. If Americans get a whiff
of it, they'll gag. Yes, corporations will put a ton of money behind TPP's
passage, but even they might not have enough PR perfume to make Congress hug
it.
There is also a broad, well-organized,
knowledgeable, and politically experienced coalition of grassroots groups
already at work to prevent this perversion of America
Baloney. First, this one is not at all
complex; it's a plain old power grab by the world's moneyed elites, and people
today have no interest in giving more money and power to the world's
1-percenters. Second, populist forces now opposing TPP have won many of these
brawls in the past, including:
Stopping Clinton
Sidetracking the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in 1998.
Derailing an expansion of the World Trade Organization in 1999 and
again in 2010.
Defeating the Free Trade Area of the Americas
Halting such multi-nation trade deals as AFTA (Andean countries)
and NAFTA-style deals with APEC (an earlier attempt at the TPP with 18 Pacific
Rim Countries), SACU (Southern Africa), Malaysia ,
and Thailand
My message: We can do this. We The People can
protect our democratic rights from this latest threat of corporate usurpation.
The only way the Powers That Be can win is to keep the public in the dark about
what TPP is. So now is the time for Lowdowners
to sound the alarm, spread
the news about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (start by sharing this article
with your social networks!), and shine the light of day on their power play
before it gets to Congress.
Contents #3, Nov. 25,
2012
Dick: Jeju Island
Obama Focuses on Asia-Pacific
Burns on Panetta: Transferring Forces to China
Letman (via Global Nework and VFP): Hawaii
US Fear of Chinese Port
Andre Vltchek, Oceania , Western Imperialism S. Pacific
Contents #4 Encircling China
LaFebre, Expansion 1860-1898
Dick: Progress to Pacific
Dick: General Custer
Lind: Hawaii
Bardsley: US Troops to Australia : China
Paik and Mander: Pacific Blowback
Space Alert! Dec. 2012
Middleton, Australian
Military Connections
US and NZ: Waihopai
Spybase
Vandenberg Air Force
Base
Star Wars and China
USPACCOM
END US WESTWARD IMPERIALISM, PACIFIC, E. ASIA
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