Weekend Economists Salute Our (Founding) Fathers June 14-16, 2013

[Demeter]

29. Corporations are Colonizing Us with Trade Deals, and Wall Street Wants In By Richard (RJ) Eskow

http://www.nationofchange.org/corporations-are-colonizing-us-trade-deals-and-wall-street-wants-1370613249

After 237 years, we’re becoming a colony again. Our nation’s losing the right to self-determination it fought so hard to win, and it’s happening on a scale unseen since the days of George III. As is so often the case these days, this wholesale loss of our rights is being underwritten by corporate interests. And, as usual, it’s being called “bipartisan” – by corporations who “buy” both Republican and Democratic “partisans.” (I THINK WE NEED A NEW TERM FOR THAT: BUY-PARTISAN!)

Terms of Surrender

Republicans cheered George W. Bush for saying, “I will never place U.S. troops under U.N. command.” Democrats cheered Barack Obama for saying, “I want us to control our own energy destiny.” But both leaders pushed trade agreements that surrender our sovereign rights to faceless bureaucrats in international bodies – bodies that are dominated by multinational corporations. Where are those cheering crowds now? Republicans backed a president who supported a agreements which put Americans’ rights – and their environment – “under the command” of foreign bodies. And unless something changes Democratic voters will soon see their president give up even more control of our economic destiny.

WTO Stands For “We’re Taking Over”

Public Citizen, which has been doing excellent work on this issue, reports on three U.S. laws that were nullified by the World Trade Organization (WTO): country-of-origin labels on meat, dolphin-safe labels on tuna, and the ban on sweet-flavored cigarettes designed to get kids addicted to the tobacco companies’ carcinogenic products. (What’s next: Cherry-flavored crack?) The WTO and the WTO “Appellate Body” – two bodies most Americans don’t even know exist – overruled these laws in a preemptory manner that would have outraged the Continental Congress. We didn’t elect them. We can’t communicate with them. But they’ve issued three decrees which we must obey:

1) We are not to know where the meat we’re eating comes from.

2) We must accept the fact that we may unknowingly wind up eating the flesh of dolphins, arguably the most intelligent nonhuman species on the planet. And,

3) We must continue to allow the distribution of products designed to addict our children to a deadly and habit-forming substance.

How’s that for “controlling our own destiny”?

The Next Front

The next stage of our war for economic independence is being determined in trade talks that are being conducted in deep secrecy by a president who once promised “the most transparent administration in history.” Laurel Sutherlin calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership “a worldwide corporate power grab of enormous proportions,” and that pretty accurately sums it up. (It’s hard to write about these deals without sounding hyperbolic, even if you’re only being descriptive.) As Sutherlin points out, the TPP “is among the largest and potentially most important ‘free trade’ agreements the world has ever seen …” And yet, as Sutherlin notes, “one can hardly be blamed for not being familiar with it yet. The corporate cabal behind it … has done an exceptional job of maintaining an almost total lack of transparency as they literally design the future we will all inhabit.” Although 600 corporate representatives have seen drafts of the agreement, access has been denied to even high-ranking members of Congress. Dave Johnson excerpts some provisions being considered in the secret talks, and they’re truly terrifying. In fact, as Lori Wallach and Ben Beachy point out in a must-read editorial, the treaty’s provisions are so unpopular that the last negotiator felt it could only be concluded in secret. And now sovereignty-killing provisions are being considered for a trade agreement with member nations of the European Union...

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! THE BANKSTERS WANT A PIECE OF THE ACTION! SEE LINK