Trade Secrets - Monbiot

[polly7]

By George Monbiot

Source: The Guardian
January 15, 2015

If a government proposes to abandon one of the fundamental principles of justice, there had better be a powerful reason. Equality before the law is not ditched lightly. Surely? Well, read this and judge for yourself. The UK government, like that of the US and 13 other EU members, wants to set up a separate judicial system, exclusively for the use of corporations. While the rest of us must take our chances in the courts, corporations across the EU and US will be allowed to sue governments before a tribunal of corporate lawyers. They will be able to challenge the laws they don’t like, and seek massive compensation if these are deemed to affect their “future anticipated profits”.

I’m talking about the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its provisions for “investor-state dispute settlement”. If this sounds incomprehensible, that’s mission accomplished: public understanding is lethal to this attempted corporate coup.

The TTIP is widely described as a trade agreement. But while in the past trade agreements sought to address protectionism, now they seek to address protection. In other words, once they promoted free trade by removing trade taxes (tariffs); now they promote the interests of transnational capital by downgrading the defence of human health, the natural world, labour rights, and the poor and vulnerable from predatory corporate practices.

So keep marching, keep signing, keep joining the campaigns that have come together under the Stop TTIP banner. In an age of ecocide, food banks and financial collapse, do we need more protection from predatory corporate practices, or less? This is a reckless, unjustified destruction of our rights. We can defeat it.

Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/trade-secrets/

[KoKo]

1. I wonder if the disruption in could put a halt to this?

With the news about the Swiss pulling a shocker by letting the franc float. Business sites seem freaked out about it. And Greece threatening to pull out of the Eurozone.

[polly7]

2. I sure hope so, KoKo.

At one time, it just seemed like it was going to steam-roll through, but with country after country fighting back against austerity measures and doing what they have to to keep afloat, it may not go as easy as those with the most to gain had hoped - if at all. We can dream, right?