OMNI
US
WESTWARD IMPERIALISM, PACIFIC OCEAN, EAST ASIA, TPP NEWSLETTER #17, July 13, 2015.
Compiled
by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
(http://omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/
#1 May 8, 2012; #2 August 22, 2012; #3 Nov. 25, 2012; #4 Jan. 12, 2013; #5
March 27, 2013; #6 July 5, 2013; #7 August 12, 2013; #8 Nov. 8, 2013; #9 Jan.
2, 2014; #10 Feb. 3, 2014; #11 Feb. 26, 2014; #12 April 21, 2014; #13, June 26,
2014; #14 Sept. 24, 2014; #15, Feb. 18, 2015; April 12, 2015 ). Thanks to Marc Quigley
What’s at
stake:
Each of these newsletters is a small anthology intended to
provide knowledge for personal communication and letters and columns to the
editor. All together they constitute a
large collection of writings on the subject from the point of view of world
peace, nonviolence, social and economic justice, human rights, participatory
democracy, affirmative government, stewardship of the planet’s earth and air
and all species.
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. Write
Letter or Column
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, Korean War, Pentagon, TPP, US
Imperialism, Vietnam War, WWII Colonial Pacific, and more.
See Nuclear Free Independent Pacific DAY.doc, Marshall Islands Suits Against Nuclear Nations, No Bases
Network, Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
My blog:
No to the War Department/Yes to the Peace Department
Contents #
16 at end
Contents: US Westward Imperialism, Pacific/E. Asia Newsletter
#17, July 12, 2015
(See US Continental Westward Imperialism Newsletters)
US Westward Imperialism
Network of Military Bases
From
Tacoma to Tajikistan
Opposition
to New Base on Okinawa
Pentagon’s
Vietnam War Whitewash Campaign and VfP Counter Campaign
US Global Imperial
Military Bases and Nuclear Threat
David
Vine, Books on Global Harms and Diego Garcia
No
to the New Trident WMD
Mona
Lee, GZ Center: Ending the Nuclear Arms Race
TPP Trans-Pacific
Partnership
(OMNI published 4 articles
in #15, 10 in #16, now 9 in #17)
Fran Alexander, Fooling the People
Joyce Hale: Benefitting Corporations, Can the Public Follow the
Dots?
Senator Sessions Exposes Contents
Grayson: TPP vs. Democracy
Warren to Obama
Baker, Four Reports including how Corporate Media Report TPP:
The
Washington Post
Washington Post
Contact President Obama and Congressmen
US WESTWARD IMPERIALISM, PACIFIC, E. ASIA NETWORK OF BASES
FROM TACOMA TO TAJIKISTAN, Google
Search, July 12, 2015
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zQVqvB9UmUTc...
Google
Map of major US bases within close
proximity to Iran, in addition to other NATOmilitary sites near the Islamic Republic. Locations shown are
semi-permanent ...Turkmenistan:
Secret U.S. Base For Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran ...www.globalresearch.ca/turkmenistan-secret-u-s-base-for.../20411
Aug 2, 2010 - Turkmenistan: Secret U.S. Base For Afghanistan,
Iraq, Iran Campaigns ... In September 2004, at the Mary-2 airfield, U.S. military experts ...
May 1, 2012 - Dozens of US and allied
forces' military
installations dot
the region, from ... Turkey and Israel to the west, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan to
the ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/news/military-bases/ The Huffington Post
Did you know the U.S. military maintains
roughly 1,000 military installations .... This year Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and
Kyrgyzstan turn ...
Opposing US Base Construction on Okinawa
Global Network
[globalnet@mindspring.com]To: GN List Serve
[globenet@yahoogroups.com]
Wednesday, January 08, 2014 7:57 AM
STATEMENT
We oppose
construction of a new US military base within Okinawa, and support the people
of Okinawa in their struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of
the environment
We the
undersigned oppose the deal made at the end of 2013 between Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe and Governor of Okinawa Hirokazu Nakaima to deepen and extend the
military colonization of Okinawa at the
expense of the people and the environment. Using the lure of economic
development, Mr. Abe has extracted approval from Governor Nakaima to reclaim
the water off Henoko, on the northeastern shore of Okinawa, to build a massive
new U.S. Marine air base with a military port. . . .
We support
the people of Okinawa in their non-violent
struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment.
The Henoko marine base project must be canceled and Futenma returned forthwith
to the people of Okinawa .
January 2014
Norman Birnbaum, Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University
Herbert Bix, Emeritus Professor of History and Sociology, State
University of New
York at Binghamton
Reiner Braun, Co-president International
Peace Bureau and Executive Director of International Association of Lawyers
Against Nuclear Arms
Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
John W. Dower, Professor Emeritus of
History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
And more.
PENTAGON WHITEWASH OF VIETNAM WAR
This year marks the 50th
anniversary of the landing of U.S. ground troops in Da Nang, Vietnam.
Many consider this to be the beginning of the American War in Vietnam. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the war
the Pentagon is undertaking a ten-year, $65-million campaign to rewrite and
whitewash the history of the war in Southeast Asia.
In response, Veterans for Peace has announced the Vietnam War Full Disclosure project to offer a more truthful history of the war. <More>
For more information, email Doug Rawlings @Rawlings@maine.edu or visit the Full Disclosure Campaign website.
In response, Veterans for Peace has announced the Vietnam War Full Disclosure project to offer a more truthful history of the war. <More>
For more information, email Doug Rawlings @Rawlings@maine.edu or visit the Full Disclosure Campaign website.
GLOBAL SYSTEM OF MILITARY BASES
See OMNI Newsletters on US Bases Covering the Planet http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/564756/21224228/1355159762283/2012-12-09.pdf?token=YO93oxgp%2F2o06AU0k1eU1C2Xdx8%3D
Bases Around the World, Westward? Eastward? From San Diego to Diego Garcia, and from Virginia
Beach to Vladivostok
David Vine, Essay and Books on US Worldwide Bases and Diego Garcia
WESTWARD IMPERIALISM FROM Bangor, Washinton, Nuclear Submarines
to
IMPERIALISM
Bases Around the World Westward and Eastward
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Recommended
Reading From The American Empire Project
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The Truth About Diego Garcia
And 50 Years of Fiction About an American Military Base by David Vine  First,
they tried to shoot the dogs. Next, they tried to poison them with
strychnine. When both failed as efficient killing methods, British government
agents and U.S. Navy personnel used raw meat to lure the pets into a sealed
shed. Locking them inside, they gassed the howling animals with exhaust piped
in from U.S. military vehicles. Then, setting coconut husks ablaze, they
burned the dogs' carcasses as their owners were left to watch and ponder
their own fate.
The truth about the U.S. military base on the British-controlled
Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia is often hard to believe. It would be
easy enough to confuse the real story with fictional accounts of the island
found in the Transformers movies,
on the television series 24, and in Internet
conspiracy theories about
the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
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Coming Soon From David Vine |
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From Italy to the Indian Ocean, from Japan to Honduras, a
far-reaching examination of the perils of American military bases overseas
American military bases encircle the globe. More than two
decades after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. still stations its troops at
nearly a thousand locations in foreign lands. These bases are usually taken
for granted or overlooked entirely, a little-noticed part of the Pentagon's
vast operations. But in an eye-opening account, Base Nation shows
that the worldwide network of bases brings with it a panoply of ills—and
actually makes the nation less safe in the long run.
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David Vine
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, American U
·
Author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military
Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (Metropolitan
Books/Henry Holt, August 2015) and Island of Shame: The Secret
History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton,
2009), David
Vine’s work focuses on issues including U.S. foreign and military policy,
military bases, forced displacement, and human rights. He is the co-author,
with the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, of the Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual, or Notes on Demilitarizing
American Society (Prickly Paradigm, 2009). His other writing
has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian (London), Mother
Jones, Foreign Policy in Focus, Chronicle of Higher Education, and
International Migration, among others. In addition to almost fifteen years of
research about Diego Garcia and U.S. military bases abroad, David has conducted
research about gentrification in Brooklyn, NY, environmental refugees,
homelessness and mental illness, and DC-area basketball. For more information
and links to David's writing, see www.davidvine.net.
·
Degrees
PhD,
Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York
MA, Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York
BA, Sociology, Wesleyan University
MA, Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York
BA, Sociology, Wesleyan University
Bringing
the Message of No to New Trident
to the Big
Apple
By Leonard
Eiger April 2015 in Ground Zero [GZ is the permanent watch at the Trident
nuclear submarine base at Bangor, Washington.
You will appreciate their work and newsletters.–Dick]
Article
after article in the past few months has be-moaned the U.S. Navy’s “aging”
ballistic missile submarine fleet, touted the need for a replacement, or
explained the need to fund the new fleet outside of normal funding channels
(can you say “slush fund”?).
If some
members of Congress have their way, the OHIO Class Replacement (or New Trident)
will have its own special slush fund. With the funding in hand (outside of the
accepted Congressional budget channels, and outside the Navy’s shipbuilding
budget) it would be smooth sailing for General Dynamics Electric Boat, a
company that stands to reap huge profits from the construction of the new
submarines. Electric Boat (in Groton, Connecticut) expects to see its workforce
grow from its current 13,000 employees to 18,000 by 2030, based in large part
on New Trident. Not surprisingly, the two members of Congress who are the most
vocal proponents of New Trident (and its rather nontraditional funding method)
are from Connecticut.
Yet, beyond
the funding issues lies the fundamental question no one (in the corporate
press) is asking — why build an outdated nuclear weapons system that will only
serve to in-crease both global nuclear proliferation and the risk of either
accidental or intentional nuclear war? The momentum pushing New Trident, and a
host of other nuclear weapons pro-grams, is Cold War thinking. Tri-dent’s
heyday should have ended long ago with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The US is
creating a perceived need for nuclear weapons through its foreign policy
pursuits, which place nuclear weapons front and center. A recent article
referred to Trident as playing “an increasingly important role in America’s
ability to deliver a nuclear punch.” The article also quotes Virginia Rep. Rob
Whittman referring to Trident as “a national strategic asset. Newport News
Ship-building in Virginia is another company that could gain from production of
New Trident.
The
ultimate question we need to ask is whether Tri-dent, and especially New
Trident, is an asset or a liability. We don’t want to learn the answer the hard
way.
We stand at
a critical crossroads in the nearly seven decade-long struggle to abolish
nuclear weapons; I think Dr.
King’s
phrase “the fierce urgency of now” would be an understatement. A new Cold War
is brewing, and it could end up involving more than just the US and Russia this
time. At any rate, it is the US and Russia that remain the world’s nu-clear
superpowers, and it is these countries that must lead the way to nuclear
disarmament.
The 9th
Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty will take place at
the UN beginning in late April. The empty rhetoric of prior NPT Review
Conferences makes me skeptical of the probability of progress towards
“negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the
nu-clear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty
on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international
control,” as Article VI of the NPT requires.
This makes
it even more critical that civil society rise up and engaged citizens make
their voices heard. Just prior to this year’s NPT meeting there will be a large
gathering of people from many different movements at the Peace & Planet
Conference on April 24 and 25. The conference will end with a march to the UN
on April 26. On April 28 there will be nonviolent direct action at the US Mission
to the UN. I will be participating in all of these events, representing Ground
Zero. I will be drawing attention to the need to stop production of New Trident
as well as trying to build a coalition of organizations to facilitate our power
in speaking with a more unified voice for nuclear disarmament.
Each of us
has some role to play in the struggle to abolish nuclear weapons; we all can
(and must) do some-thing for the sake of future generations. I invite everyone
to go to the Peace & Planet website to learn more. While there, click on
the link under “Get Involved!” to sign the Petition for the Total
Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The petition organizers have so far
obtained over 5 million signatures!
In his book
Confronting the Bomb, historian Lawrence Wittner wrote that it is not
the conventional explanation of “deterrence” that has saved the world from
nuclear annihilation over the past 65 years, but a “massive nuclear disarmament
movement.” Let us hope that we will have a “massive” presence in New York City
this April to send a clear message to the nuclear weapons states that the time
for disarmament is NOW!
Making
Connections to End the New Nuclear Arms Race
By Mona Lee
April 2015 in Ground Zero
On August 8, 1945 when
atomic bombs were falling on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was six years old and
living on Chambers Road in Ferguson, Mo. Which at the time was a working class
suburb of a predominantly poor black city. To this day, I vividly recall a
photograph on the St. Louis Post Dispatch front page of Japanese faces
distorted into hideous masks of terror. In school we learned this had been done
to end the War.
Thus began the old
nuclear arms race. From then on, that race escalated as later we were told the
US nuclear arsenal was to prevent “the communists” from taking over the world.
In Catholic school we learned that communism was the essence of evil although
my mother, who lived in fear of my father losing his job, once told me that
under communism she wouldn’t have to worry because the govern-ment gave
everyone a job. I also remember my father saying that nuclear weapons made our
country the most powerful nation on earth. Yet we were frequently reminded that
the bombs could, and in fact most likely would, eventually destroy the world.
It was not until much
later that I figured out why our country needed to be the most the most
powerful nation. That was to control the world’s resources because our economic
system, called capitalism, runs on the need for ever increasing profits for the
wealthy. It is also capitalism’s insatiable hunger for profits that has increasingly
deflated the wages and living standards of working people until today we have
the most obscene income gap between rich and poor in more than a hundred years.
And the people to whom the least of all this trickles down are today’s young
people, especially African American descendants of slaves like the ones who now
inhabit my home town, Ferguson.
Recently our government
has decided to spend one trillion dollars to modernize its entire nuclear
arsenal, thus enabling our weapons to destroy missile silos of other nations
before they can not strike back. This, of course, has frightened Russia and
other nuclear arms nations, thus triggering a new arms race that has made
nuclear war more likely than it has been since the Cuban missile crisis. The
capitalist ruling elites have decided that their profits are worth the risk of
nuclear war.
So where will the
trillion dollars come from to pay for this insanity?
From you and me and working
class people of places like my home town where the African American teenager,
Mike Brown, was shot by police the day before he
was to enter College . . . like New York City where James Garner, another young
black man was suffocated by police . . . like Cleveland where twelve year old
Tamir Rice was shot while playing with a toy gun in a park . . . and countless
other places where a bludgeoning US police state currently imprisons more
African Americans than it once held as slaves.
On August 8
2015, 60 years after Hiroshima woke us up to audacity of our country’s military
might, the Ferguson incident jolted us into the realization that this military
power could be turned against its people as police, equipped with M16 rifles,
riot gear and armored vehicles, descended upon peaceful protestors decrying the
untimely death of their young neighbor. We learned that that all this war
machinery had been supplied by the same military establishment that owns the
nukes. An affective capitalist police state had been stealthily created in
America, our “land of the free” without our knowledge. It took a shock wave
like Ferguson to jolt the capitalist media into letting us know. I shudder to
think what it might take to force them to inform us about the “New Nuclear Arms
Race.”
During the Cuban missile crisis
in 1962 everyone with a TV set was sitting in front of it trembling and biting
their nails. Yet when I spoke to nearly a hundred young activists gathered at
the University of Washington last month, virtually none were aware of the new
nuclear arms race. Most were unaware that the Trident Base Bangor is located in
Hood Canal only 15 miles northwest of where we sat and contains the largest
stockpile of nuclear weapons on the planet.
So of course, it had not occurred to them that an accident in loading or unloading
a missile there could contaminate the entire Puget Sound Region.
Those young
activists gathered that day at UW were some of the most aware people I know.
Most had worked hard to deliver Seattle workers their famous $15 minimum wage;
every one of them was clued in to the likelihood of capitalism’s insatiable
thirst for profit destroying all life on the planet by disastrous climate
change; most had marched to cry out that, “black lives matter.” But the
recently in-creased threat of nuclear war had not crossed their radar screens, nor
had it occurred to them how much good the millions of dollars poured into nuclear
weapons modernization might otherwise do to further their many worthy causes
like education, health care, public works, jobs programs. Two years before I
had joined them to work on issues they cared about, and that’s what gave me the
opportunity to ad-dress them on the nuclear threat and how it is integrally connected
with all their other concerns.
Bruce Gagnon of Global Networks
speaking at Ground Zero during the Martin Luther King Day Activities remind-ed
us that, “All of our progressive movements are on the losing end of things
these days. We’ve got to get out from behind our single issue silos and make
connections between our various campaigns if we hope to have any success. I am
going to explore going to the unemployment office, Social Security office,
welfare office and hand out flyers that show the links between massive cost
overruns on Navy warships, F-35 fighters, space war fighting technologies and
the real cuts coming in social programs that are daily impacting the lives of
people across the nation. When we begin to shine a light on these wasteful
military programs for endless war, and help the public see the deadly
connections to cuts in social program, then we can seriously talk about
expanding our movements. Until we take these steps to connect the dots across issue lines, we will remain isolated,
weak, and ultimately ineffective.”
The
hundreds of leaflets we hand out will continue to be tossed into the nearest trash
bins until we succeed in making those connections. All our efforts to awaken
young people to the threat of nuclear war will fall upon deaf ears unless we
call awareness to those connections.
That is why
Ground Zero, along with other Seattle activists are planning an Earth Day
Action in downtown Seattle on April 21, 2015. We will begin with leafleting,
vigiling and street theatre at noon at West Lake Center Park in downtown
Seattle. Complete with monks, candles, a casket holding the symbolic earth we
will enact the same Memorial for the Earth street theatre Ground Zero performed
at the Bangor Gate last month. Our leaflets will point out the way these
extremely dangerous and extravagant military expenditures necessitate cuts in
social programs and starve initiatives for education, health care, public
works, jobs pro-grams, and dampen all progressive hopes for the future. From
West Lake we will lead a funeral procession to the Federal Building, conduct
the Memorial again there as well, and meet with our Senators Patty Murray and
Maria Cant-well.
We hope you
will join us. Everyone is welcome.
TPP
Alexander, Hale, Long, Sessions, Grayson, Warren, Kowalski,
Cole, Baker
Tricks of the trade By Fran Alexander
Posted:
May 5, 2015 at 1 a.m.
·
You can
fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but
you cannot fool all the people all the time.
--
Abraham Lincoln
Let's
establish right off that for me to be discussing trade agreements is right up
there with me personally waxing eloquent on brain surgery or nuclear physics.
It won't happen. However, like all high-powered and esoteric topics, eventually
the consequences of actions taken in lofty realms become more understandable
when they translate directly or indirectly down into the lives and finances of
us, the common folk. So it is with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed
trade agreement involving about a dozen, mostly Pacific Rim, countries.
As
with the North America Free Trade Agreement and the Central America Free Trade
Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership pushers beat their usual political
drum claiming job creation on a massive scale. However, U.S. labor
organizations have long said the consequences of those agreements have been
devastating to the tune of hundreds of thousands of American jobs along with
numerous manufacturing closures. They feel the partnership will be even worse,
calling it "NAFTA on steroids," because it represents 40 percent of
America's global trade.
Opponents
also point out these trade agreements really have less to do with trade than
with corporate controls and shields from various countries' policies and laws,
be they human rights, environmental protections, financial regulations, labor
conditions, food safety standards, etc. These agreements expose nations to
being sued if national policies can be shown to somehow cause corporations to fail
to profit, to operate as they wish, or even just frustrate their profit
expectations. The examples of such cases can be wild, even preposterous. Philip
Morris, for example, has sued Uruguay and Australia over those countries'
anti-smoking initiatives. Imagine how environmental protections that have taken
us generations to establish in this country will fare when they frustrate the
profit-making abilities of international corporations. Should we just kiss
environmental laws goodbye?
The
fines to a country if it loses a judgment can run into billions, which many
governments cannot afford, so they give in to corporate overlords. This is why
opponents say joining such agreements puts independent governmental sovereignty
at risk. That includes ours, by the way.
U.S.
Sen. Tom Cotton's answer to my concern over some of the terms in the
Trans-Pacific Partnership was a typical what-to-tell-the-citizens response. He
wrote, "The TPP has the potential to be a game-changing trade pact for
American businesses. With the right protections in place, such a pact would
facilitate increased trade among all parties, raising our standard of living
and providing an increased market for Arkansas rice, aeronautics equipment, and
cotton, among other products we currently export." We innocents may ask,
"What could be the problem with this?"
Perhaps
Sen. Cotton should have written the phrase, "With the right protections in
place" and "businesses" in bold capitalized lettering because
within those few words exists a world of very different beneficiaries. First
and foremost, the question should be, "Whose protections?" In
addition, those who have been critical of the agreement greatly fear the
"fast-track" authority, which Congress may vote to give the president
as early as next week, that allows secretive negotiations without public input
or awareness. It also lasts for six years so one or two more presidents could
use this beyond-the-reach-of-citizens technique to aid and abet geopolitical
corporate wants and power.
Renee
Parsons, in a Huffington Post article in 2013 titled, "With the
Trans-Pacific Partnership's Fast Track Authority, Who Needs Congress?"
pointed out the so-called protections generate, "a massive economic
integration toward a fully corporatized global economy." Ellen Brown's
article of April 27 on her Web of Debt blog is titled, "The TPP and the
Death of the Republic," and reports that "On April 22, the Senate
Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the TPP ... that would override
our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority
to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers." She also points out
that fast-tracking "means Congress will be prohibited from amending the
trade deal."
What
can we do about this? Read those articles and others online, search linkswww.peopledemandingaction.org and www.citizen.org for
information, and contact our Arkansas senators and congressmen immediately with
your opinions. This is urgent. Politicians turning secretive tricks of any kind
on the people of this country should be found as guilty as those practicing
that other oldest profession.
Commentary
on
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7-12-15
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I
have been invited to make comments about TPP for a KUAF program that is being
put together to discuss supporters and opponents. Having stepped away
from my obsessive following of the subject for a couple of months, I felt I had
better refresh and update my information in an effort to not make a fool of
myself. After looking intently at this for about five years, it is rather
surrealistic to think it has remained alive after Wikileaks and the tremendous educational efforts by Public Citizen. They cracked open
the window of secrecy just enough to let us know about the many non-trade
issues that are being designed to benefit corporate control that will
exacerbate deterioration of the middle class. Now that FTA has greased the
skids for passage of the multiple bills that are cued in the pipeline, it will
be interesting to see how long it takes the public to realize they have been
had... again. The truth is, it wouldn't surprise me if the public fails
to follow the dots of how all this has occurred and come up with some
simplistic reason as to why their lives are worse off without placing blame
where it's due.
The
situation about granting Malaysia
favored nation status as a trading partner after its slave trafficking and slaughter
and high-seas pirating must require the issuance of large clothespins for
negotiators' noses. The rotten stench should have them on their
knees. But then we managed to overlook the stench in Columbia where NAFTA
was concerned. I found it interesting that one of the others to be
interviewed by KUAF is Boon Tan, Senior Director - Global Trade with the
World Trade Center of Arkansas located in Rogers. http://arwtc.org/staff/boon-tan/ Tan was
previously stationed in Malaysia as a trade representative so it would be
interesting to hear his take on this current situation. Sadly, since the
interviewer wants to keep her job, you can be sure it won't come up in his
interview. Here is a link to another article on this story that does a
bit more in describing the situation. What pain and suffering we are
witnessing! http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/
It
is hard to imagine that TPP and its ugly trade sisters will be stopped now that
FTA has passed. Like the old German saying, "Too soon old, too late
smart." I have tried for years to get interest going on this topic
and never found a critical mass who saw it as being more important than what
was already on their agenda.
Joyce
On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 11:46 AM, E Meredith Long <long9875@yahoo.com>wrote:
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So that U.S. President Barack Obama can end a roadblock and
win the agreement of other nations for his proposed Trans Pacific
Partnership, he has decided to remove ...
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We can now more officially add the
American flag to that category of insignia that might signify slavery. B
Senator Jeff Sessions Exposes TPP Content
This is the exposure that has been needed for years. It
will be interesting to see if courage is contagious now that Senator Jeff
Sessions has stepped forward to challenge the threat of prosecution for
exposing TPP content that has been on Congressional members by the U. S Trade
Office. Sunlight on legislation can be a strong disinfectant. Let
it shine! Let it shine! [from
Joyce H 5-20-15]
Senator Sessions
GRAYSON Letter: No on Fast Track
on FTA. NO TPP//Reasons
5-10-15
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NIKE the Number 1 lobbying
company for the TPP because it has made billions for NIKE at our expense.
My Open letter to Senators & Rep:
The TPP is not a
sustainable solution for anyone concerned. From information leaked about
the TPP, a better title would be Trans Pollution Partnership.
It is wrong to prioritize
corporations profits over People and all of the Planet. Using corporate
tribunals, a corporation can sue our state local or federal government for our
taxpayer dollars if a corporations future profits are threatened. The
corporations can take our money and invalidate our laws. Shall such
sociopathic measures be repeated? History shows that NAFTA is an example
of this. The TPP is considered to be NAFTA on Steroids expanding the
powers of corporations with 29 chapters written and only 5 chapters are related
to trade. The rest are related to governance. This extremist scheme
would benefit only the 1% = the Corporate Fascist Shadow Government. With
life support systems eradicated, what would the children do? This scheme
would not only be the end of America with foreign corporation buy outs, but it
would also be the end of the life support on planet Earth. I suppose that is
the reason there is such an intricate underground system of cities here in
America, especially under the NSA facilities. Below I include some
examples of the TPP projected devastation wrought by the undermining of our
national sovereignty and democracy.
A.
the unchecked poisoning of our food supply via antibiotic resistant bacteria
B.
the unchecked poisoning of our food supply via GMOs and synthetic life =
biodevastation.
C. the unchecked poisoning
of our water supply via Hydraulic Fractionation.
D. the unchecked poisoning
of our land via CAFOs, GMOs, chemical pesticides, chemical herbicides
E. the unchecked poisoning
of our air and water due to CAFOs, chemical pesticides, chemical herbicides
F. the unchecked poisoning
of our water and land due to fossil fuel extraction plus carbon increase: tar
sands & pipelines, off shore drilling
G. the unchecked poisoning
of our water and air due to nuclear reactor meltdowns.
H. the unchecked poisoning
of our economy by escalating the economic inequality through off-shoring of
jobs and escalating trade deficit.
How do we know these dangers? By observation, clinical
studies, & historical facts.
Wikileaks cables have revealed that Monsanto has operatives
within our government as well as key US diplomats. Monsanto’s
expansionist and health endangering agenda is carried out by targeted military
style trade wars. Monsanto has a repetitive history of creating toxic
poisons such as DDT, Agent Orange, rBGH & Aspartame & Round Up and GMOs
culminates the list.
The studies of Dr. Don Huber, Howard Vlieger and others
illustrates the toxicity of GMOs and Round Up. Actual farm studies were
conducted by Howard Vlieger and have been published in journals.
There’s also a shift to non-GMO feed among livestock farmers.
Iowa farmer and crop and livestock advisor Howard Vlieger says:
“We are seeing more and more livestock operations recognize the
benefit in animal health of switching to non-GMO feed. In swine the PRRS
[porcine respiratory reproductive syndrome] and PED [porcine epidemic
diarrhea] is mostly gone once they have completed one or two breeding cycles on
the non-GMO feed. One operation that I advised to switch to non-GMO feed had a
85% reduction in injectable antibiotic use along with improved performance.
“In poultry (layers) I received a report of bird mortality rates being cut in half and the egg production increasing 3-5% by switching to non-GMO feed. When an equipment problem forced them to feed GM for one batch of feed the egg production went down within 2 days of using the GM feed and production came back up within 3 days of switching back to non-GMO.”
“In poultry (layers) I received a report of bird mortality rates being cut in half and the egg production increasing 3-5% by switching to non-GMO feed. When an equipment problem forced them to feed GM for one batch of feed the egg production went down within 2 days of using the GM feed and production came back up within 3 days of switching back to non-GMO.”
Grass-fed meat has been shown to contain less fat, more
beneficial fatty acids, and more vitamins and to be a good source of a variety
of nutrients. According to a study published in the Journal of Animal
Science in 2009, eating grass-fed beef provides many benefits to
consumers: (3) S.K. Duckett et al, Journal of Animal
Science, (published online) June 2009, “Effects
of winter stocker growth rate and finishing system on: III. Tissue proximate,
fatty acid, vitamin and cholesterol content.”
1.
Lower in total fat
2.
Higher in beta-carotene
3.
Higher in vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol)
4.
Higher in the B-vitamins thiamin and riboflavin
5.
Higher in the minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium
6.
Higher in total omega-3s
7.
A healthier ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids (1.65 vs
4.84)
8.
Higher in CLA (cis-9 trans-11), a potential cancer fighter
9.
Higher in vaccenic acid (which can be transformed into CLA)
10.
Lower in the saturated fats linked with heart disease
The prioritized agenda of the 1% makes no sense, only big $$$
and only for the 1%.
Oppose Fast Track because it undermines democratic process on
the TPP or any Free Trade Agenda agreement. Oppose the TPP because
of all the reasons above.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sue Skidmore
Springfield, MO 65804
Attachments:
Dr. Don Huber on record with Dr Mercola. Dr. Don Huber:
GMOs and Glyphosate and Their Threat to Humanity by Food Integrity Now http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/06/dr-huber-gmo-foods.aspx
WARREN TO OBAMA
This TPP story is very good. It is quite
alarming how this legislation is seriously anti democratic and secretive, and
as this story indicates is farther to the corporate right wing than even
Bush...it smells like a hostile corporate takeover more extreme than any
previous corrupt free trade legislation..and Hillary is silent...in addition to
her other positions, her silent consent forces me to oppose her completely from
her presidential aspirations. unlike other democrats opposing TPP, she is not a
leader. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/25/elizabeth-warren-tells-obama-put-or-shut-trade
TPP: Leaked text that confirms the worst:
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1:19 PM (1 hour ago)
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Friends,
The Trans-Pacific
Partnership is huge corporate power grab being negotiated in secret by the US and 11
other countries. It directly threatens both the climate and workers across the
globe.
But
it's an idea we can stop -- if we speak out and tell Congress to put people and
planet before corporate profits. Click here to send a message to
Congress to tell them to say no to the TPP.
An
idea this bad is hard to keep under wraps, and key sections of the deal have
leaked to the public via Wikileaks.What we have learned is just astonishing:
The
TPP would allow multinational fossil fuel companies to sue governments that
hurt their profits by keeping carbon pollution in the ground. This is an agreement
basically being written by Big Oil, and it's designed to make pollution more
profitable.
The
more people find out about the TPP, the more they oppose it -- which is why we
can stop this deal. Fast Track legislation that would give the TPP a path to
approval faces a close vote in Congress.
Most
members of Congress don't expect to hear from most of their constituents on an
issue like a trade deal. Speaking out can make an apathetic politician sit up
and get off the fence.
Can
you send a message to your Representatives now, asking them to oppose the
Trans-Pacific Partnership and Fast Track? Click here to send a
message: act.350.org/sign/congress-tpp/
Labor
groups, environmental organizations and so many more are fighting back together
against the TPP, and the impact is beginning to show. The people behind the TPP
want it to stay as secret as possible for good reason. The more we speak up,
the less likely it is they will get away with it.
Let's
push, Jason
350.org is building a global climate
movement. Become a sustaining donor to keep this movement strong
and growing.
Galesburg,
Illinois, residents saw their jobs disappear after the passage of NAFTA. The
TPP likely won't be any different.
In These Times (June 6, 2015) BY PETER COLE
Getting It Wrong on Trade:
TPP Is Not Good for Workers
Published:
14 March 2015. CEPR, Beat the Press.
The big money is sweating big time since it seems large segments
of the American public have caught wind of the Obama administration's plans for
the Trans-Pacific Partnership. After several decades in which trade has been a
major factor depressing the wages and living standards of the country's
workers, the Obama administration is going back to the well to push for more.
The immediate goal is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which
includes a number of countries in Asia and Latin America. While it excludes
major countries like China and India, the explicit intention is to expand the
pact so that these countries will eventually be included. This fact is
important in assessing this deal.
For
example, the Washington Post (which has a religious devotion to these sorts of
trade deals) ran a column by three prominent economists,
David Autor, David Dorn, and George Hanson (ADH), which tells readers the TPP
is good for the country's workers. ADH is an interesting team to make this
argument since they have written several papers showing that our patterns of
trade have been an important force depressing the wages of a large segment of
the U.S. workforce.
ADH start out by saying that manufacturing workers have little
to lose in this deal because tariffs with the countries in the pact are already
near zero, therefore we will not be opening ourselves to new competition if the
few remaining barriers are eliminated. Here is where the possibility of
expansion is important.
Many prominent
economists, including many strongly pro-trade economists like Fred Bergsten, the former president of the
Peterson Institute for International Economics, have argued the TPP should
include rules on currency manipulation. While this may not be a big issue with
most of the countries in this round, it is certainly a big deal with China and
other countries that could join. According to calculations by Bergsten and
others, actions of foreign central banks to raise the value of the dollar have
added several hundred billions of dollars to our trade deficit and cost us
millions of manufacturing jobs.
If the TPP does not have rules on currency values it may be far
more difficult to address the problem of over-valued currencies and reduce the
country's trade deficit. This is hugely important in the context of an
under-employed economy, or "secular stagnation" to use the term now
popular among mainstream economists.
We have no easy mechanism for replacing the $500 billion in lost
annual demand (@ 3.0 percent of GDP) due to the trade deficit. We could do it
by running large budget deficits, but that is not politically viable. The other
mechanism that has been used to fill this demand gaps is asset bubbles, as in
stock and housing bubbles. That does not seem like a promising path going
forward either. In other words, if we want to see a full employment economy we
should be very concerned about the trade deficit and the TPP.
If ADH's assurance that workers need not worry about any
downsides from the TPP are not convincing their claims for the upside are an
even bigger failure. They make the correct point that the deal is mostly about
imposing a corporate friendly regulatory structure on the other countries in
the pact. They argue this would largely benefit U.S. corporations since they
would get more money for their patents and copyrights and would be less
concerned about foreign regulations damaging their profits.
Before dealing with the foreign aspects of this deal, it is
important to note that the deal will also bind the U.S. Congress and every
state and local government in the United States. Regardless of intentions, it
is very likely that provisions will affect the ability of governments in the
United States to get lower drug prices and to impose environmental and health
and safety regulations. The assurances to the contrary have exactly zero value.
Once the deal is written it is out of the hands of the negotiators, who do not
know how it will be interpreted by the judges in the extra-judicial
investor-state dispute settlement mechanism established by the TPP.
But the argument about the benefits to U.S. corporations is even
more interesting. U.S. corporations like Apple, GE, and Merck have been telling
us for decades in every way they can they are not in any meaningful sense
"U.S." corporations. They are corporations. They are interested in
making profits. If this means shifting jobs overseas to take advantage of low
cost labor, they will do that in a second. The same applies to environmental
regulations. And, when it comes to paying taxes, if they can find a legal or
semi-legal way to have their profits appear in an Irish or Cayman Islands
subsidiary, they will do it, end of story.
What part of getting kicked in the face do you not understand?
We care about these companies if we own stock in them, otherwise there is no
reason that we should prefer that Apple or GE make profits than Samsung or
Toyota.
In fact, the main way that these companies hope to profit from
the TPP will likely hurt U.S. workers. By getting more money for their drug
patents and copyrights from foreigners, they will effectively be crowding out
net exports of U.S. manufacturing goods. The increased patent fees and
royalties will increase the demand for the dollar, raising its value, thereby
making U.S. manufactured goods less competitive.
To put this in more practical terms, imagine that you are
selling fruit and vegetables at an outdoor market. Suppose that the people at
the next two stalls are clever hucksters, we'll call them Bill Gates and
Pfizer. Because of their cleverness, they can sell worthless junk at very high
prices to almost everyone who passes their stalls. Since most people pass their
stalls before they get to yours, the odds are that you won't sell much fruit
and vegetables. Most of your potential customers will have given most of their
money away to Bill Gates and Pfizer before they got to your stall. For this
reason, it is not just a matter of indifference to U.S. workers that the TPP
will suck more money away from foreigners in the form of higher patent fees and
royalties, it is actually harmful.
In short, the TPP is likely a really bad deal for American
workers. I say "likely", because I haven't seen it yet.
But remember, Microsoft and Pfizer are at the negotiating table,
you are not.
A version of the preceding
article was published in Extra!, with
author identified.
www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/the-incredible...The
Huffington Post
May 18, 2015 - For the elites, trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership(TPP) are a ... Follow Dean Baker on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/DeanBaker13 ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/rich-peoples-r...The
Huffington Post
Jun 16, 2015 - There are many reasons not to like the TPP, but here are my three
favorites. ... Follow Dean Baker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DeanBaker13 ...
www.cepr.net/.../getting-it-wro...Center
for Economic and Policy Research
Mar 14, 2015 - The immediate goal is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which includes a number
of countries in Asia and Latin America. While it excludes ...
You visited this page on 6/17/15.
Corporate Media Report TPP: The Washington Post
Dean Baker,
“To Washington Post, Downsides of TPP
Are Someone Else’s Problem.” Extra! (June 2015).
Maiko Takahashi and David Tweed. “Car, rice imports impasse stalls Japan, US
trade deal.” Bloomberg News, South
Africa News, April 26, 2015. [I read a version of this report in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 22,
2015, 1D, “U.S., Japan Fail to Hit Trade Deal.” Both titles are
misleading, for the report is mainly about TPP, not the trade deal with
Japan. Pentagon Secretary Carter declared the great
importance of TPP to the “rebalance” of Asia, and Congress was moving toward “trade promotion
authority,” a step toward “fast track,” but ratification of TPP might not occur
in 2015. Meanwhile “China and the
other founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank [including
many US allies] plan to sign the articles governing its management by the end
of June.” -Dick]
EPA US
Trade Representative Michael Froman says differences on trade matters between
Japan and Washington have substantially narrowed. Photo: EPA Maiko Takahashi
and David Tweed Tokyo
US and Japanese officials failed to reach agreement in marathon bilateral trade talks in Tokyo, a setback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s hopes of arriving for a summit in Washington next week with a pact in hand.
US Trade Representative Michael Froman left Tokyo after negotiations concluded around 4am yesterday, with differences remaining over vehicle and rice imports. Froman had travelled to Japan on Sunday for two days of talks with Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari to help pave the way for a broader Asia- Pacific agreement involving 10 other nations.
Differences on trade matters have substantially narrowed, Froman said before leaving the Japanese capital. The two countries have reached stage nine out of 10 in the discussions, Abe said in a television interview.
They tried to spin it in a positive way, but what seems to be pretty clear is that there is no breakthrough, said James Brown, an assistant professor for international affairs at Temple University in Tokyo.
On a foreign policy level, this is a major disappointment ahead of Abe s trip to the US that begins on Sunday.
The slow progress by Japan and the US in advancing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact in order to remain a centre of economic gravity in Asia comes as China enhances its own clout by luring more than 50 countries to join a new China-led regional infrastructure bank (AIIB). Japan and the US have been trying to overcome differences since Japan first said it would seek to join the TPP in 2013.
Speaking after the talks ended, Amari told reporters that he would meet again with Froman if needed before a meeting of all 12 nations involved with the TPP. He didn t indicate when such a meeting could be held.
Vital pillar
US officials have taken every opportunity in recent weeks to underscore that TPP is a vital pillar of its rebalance to Asia, and the US and Japan both raised concerns over transparency and governance in shunning the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter strayed from military issues in a Tokyo appearance to talk about the importance of TPP in a joint press conference with Japanese Defence Minister General Nakatani on April 8. Two days earlier, Carter told an audience in Arizona that the deal was as important to me as another aircraft carrier.
The TPP would link economies across the Pacific, making up roughly 40 percent of the world s gross domestic product. The other participants are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
The US Senate Committee on Finance introduced a bipartisan bill last week in Washington that could have sped passage of TPP-related trade legislation in Congress. The legislation would let the White House send Congress trade pacts for votes without amendment, known as trade promotion authority. It also would give Congress the right to revoke the so-called fast-track process if enough lawmakers find the president ignored negotiating goals.
Fortunately, the US Congress does seem to be working on getting that trade promotion authority, and if that goes through then this will be a lot easier to do, said Robert Feldman, chief economist at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities in Tokyo. There is always a great deal of brinkmanship involved in these negotiations, so the fact that things are reported to have gotten a little bumpy at a very, very late stage doesn t surprise me a bit.
Reluctant
The setback if it endures would make it less likely that Japan and the US will get a deal this year. With the US presidential campaign beginning to heat up, Congress may prove more reluctant to approve any trade detail next year before the vote.
No-one doubts that the gaps between the US and Japanese positions on market access issues have narrowed, Richard Katz, publisher of the US-based Oriental Economist Report, wrote after the talks ended. But it remains in serious question whether they will narrow enough to allow the two countries to come to an agreement in time so that TPP can be ratified in 2015 which means signing TPP by around the end of June.
While TPP talks languish, China and the other members of the AIIB plan to sign the articles governing its management by the end of June. Bloomberg
US and Japanese officials failed to reach agreement in marathon bilateral trade talks in Tokyo, a setback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s hopes of arriving for a summit in Washington next week with a pact in hand.
US Trade Representative Michael Froman left Tokyo after negotiations concluded around 4am yesterday, with differences remaining over vehicle and rice imports. Froman had travelled to Japan on Sunday for two days of talks with Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari to help pave the way for a broader Asia- Pacific agreement involving 10 other nations.
Differences on trade matters have substantially narrowed, Froman said before leaving the Japanese capital. The two countries have reached stage nine out of 10 in the discussions, Abe said in a television interview.
They tried to spin it in a positive way, but what seems to be pretty clear is that there is no breakthrough, said James Brown, an assistant professor for international affairs at Temple University in Tokyo.
On a foreign policy level, this is a major disappointment ahead of Abe s trip to the US that begins on Sunday.
The slow progress by Japan and the US in advancing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact in order to remain a centre of economic gravity in Asia comes as China enhances its own clout by luring more than 50 countries to join a new China-led regional infrastructure bank (AIIB). Japan and the US have been trying to overcome differences since Japan first said it would seek to join the TPP in 2013.
Speaking after the talks ended, Amari told reporters that he would meet again with Froman if needed before a meeting of all 12 nations involved with the TPP. He didn t indicate when such a meeting could be held.
Vital pillar
US officials have taken every opportunity in recent weeks to underscore that TPP is a vital pillar of its rebalance to Asia, and the US and Japan both raised concerns over transparency and governance in shunning the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter strayed from military issues in a Tokyo appearance to talk about the importance of TPP in a joint press conference with Japanese Defence Minister General Nakatani on April 8. Two days earlier, Carter told an audience in Arizona that the deal was as important to me as another aircraft carrier.
The TPP would link economies across the Pacific, making up roughly 40 percent of the world s gross domestic product. The other participants are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
The US Senate Committee on Finance introduced a bipartisan bill last week in Washington that could have sped passage of TPP-related trade legislation in Congress. The legislation would let the White House send Congress trade pacts for votes without amendment, known as trade promotion authority. It also would give Congress the right to revoke the so-called fast-track process if enough lawmakers find the president ignored negotiating goals.
Fortunately, the US Congress does seem to be working on getting that trade promotion authority, and if that goes through then this will be a lot easier to do, said Robert Feldman, chief economist at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities in Tokyo. There is always a great deal of brinkmanship involved in these negotiations, so the fact that things are reported to have gotten a little bumpy at a very, very late stage doesn t surprise me a bit.
Reluctant
The setback if it endures would make it less likely that Japan and the US will get a deal this year. With the US presidential campaign beginning to heat up, Congress may prove more reluctant to approve any trade detail next year before the vote.
No-one doubts that the gaps between the US and Japanese positions on market access issues have narrowed, Richard Katz, publisher of the US-based Oriental Economist Report, wrote after the talks ended. But it remains in serious question whether they will narrow enough to allow the two countries to come to an agreement in time so that TPP can be ratified in 2015 which means signing TPP by around the end of June.
While TPP talks languish, China and the other members of the AIIB plan to sign the articles governing its management by the end of June. Bloomberg
None of the senators or representatives publishes his e-mail address, but
each can be contacted by filling in forms offered through his website.
Senator John Boozman: (202)224-4843
Website Email: http://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
Senator Tom Cotton: (202)224-2353,
Website Email: http://www.cotton.senate.gov/content/contact-tom
Rep. Rick
Crawford, 1st District: (202)225-4076
Website Email: http://crawford.house.gov/contact/
Rep.
French Hill, 2nd District: (202)225-2506
Website Email: https://hill.house.gov/contact/email
Rep.
Steve Womack, 3rd District: (202)225-4301
Website Email: http://womack.house.gov/contact/
Rep.
Bruce Westerman, 4th District: (202) 225-3772
President
Barack Obama: Comments:
202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Contents US
Westward Imperialism, Pacific/E. Asia Newsletter #16, April 12, 2015
This Number
Is Devoted to Stopping Trans-Pacific Partners TPP
Senator Sanders
Sue Skidmore and Robert Reich, TPP a Leap in Corporate/1% Power
Sierra Club, Stop TPP Fast Track
Progressive Secretary, Tell Congress NO on Fast Track
AFL-CIO, Write Your Own Letter or Column
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning Economist Urges Caution
Sue Skidmore, Excellent Over-view
Google Search, TPP 2015, April 12, 2015
END US WESTWARD IMPERIALISM,
PACIFIC, E. ASIA NEWSLETTER #17
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