YOU DOWN WITH TPP? YEAH, YOU KNOW ME
May. 14th, 2015 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogThere is a lot of dithering about the TPP, which Presidente Obama just failed to get fast-track authority for.
And it has to be said, you know something may not be a good idea when Elizabeth Warren and Carly Fiorina both agree it’s a bad idea (albeit for different reasons).
But then, what’s to like?
The TPP isn’t new. It’s been kicked around since the previous presidential admin (bipartisan!), and no one really liked it then – at least, no one not involved with the actual negotiations. Which, BTW, is the main thing that most reasonable people object to – it’s a secret treaty with secret provisions negotiated in secret, and every time a piece of it gets leaked, you start to suspect that it’s secret for a reason: if it wasn’t secret, no one outside of a corporate boardroom would support it.
And that in itself should be a red flag. It’s unreasonable and ridiculous to expect anyone to support a trade deal without knowing what it contains or how it will affect them, much less expect them to take yr word for it that it’s a great deal. The fact that the details will be supposedly made public once it’s up for a vote is small comfort. There might be a great case to support the TPP – but none of its proponents seem capable of making a convincing one, apart from “Trust me, this will be awesome for America, and everyone who says otherwise is just wrong, so let's hurry up and get this done and let me worry about the details!”
Anyway, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has much to say about the TPP, much of it related to copyright issues, which is what first got me interested in TPP back when Presidente Bush was championing this thing. But it’s worth passing on. Most of the focus in the media has been on the specific accusations raised by Warren, but there are plenty of other reasons to suspect the TPP is a bad idea full of unwelcome surprises.
Don’t sign that dotted line,
This is dF
And it has to be said, you know something may not be a good idea when Elizabeth Warren and Carly Fiorina both agree it’s a bad idea (albeit for different reasons).
But then, what’s to like?
The TPP isn’t new. It’s been kicked around since the previous presidential admin (bipartisan!), and no one really liked it then – at least, no one not involved with the actual negotiations. Which, BTW, is the main thing that most reasonable people object to – it’s a secret treaty with secret provisions negotiated in secret, and every time a piece of it gets leaked, you start to suspect that it’s secret for a reason: if it wasn’t secret, no one outside of a corporate boardroom would support it.
And that in itself should be a red flag. It’s unreasonable and ridiculous to expect anyone to support a trade deal without knowing what it contains or how it will affect them, much less expect them to take yr word for it that it’s a great deal. The fact that the details will be supposedly made public once it’s up for a vote is small comfort. There might be a great case to support the TPP – but none of its proponents seem capable of making a convincing one, apart from “Trust me, this will be awesome for America, and everyone who says otherwise is just wrong, so let's hurry up and get this done and let me worry about the details!”
Anyway, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has much to say about the TPP, much of it related to copyright issues, which is what first got me interested in TPP back when Presidente Bush was championing this thing. But it’s worth passing on. Most of the focus in the media has been on the specific accusations raised by Warren, but there are plenty of other reasons to suspect the TPP is a bad idea full of unwelcome surprises.
Don’t sign that dotted line,
This is dF
