The title of this article refers to a new piece of international
legislation that has been euphemistically called a "trade agreement".
Eleven countries: the USA, Canada, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand,
Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia, have signed up for it; more nations in
the Far East and the Americas are said to be applying. Despite its benign
facade it sports a sinister underbelly of secrecy. It has been negotiating in
the strictest of confidentiality and officials from major corporations have
been meeting with government ministers from all signatories behind closed
doors. The TPP reeks of corruption; it specifies a brand new relationship
between sovereign nation states and transnational corporations which allows the
corporations exemption from the usual state laws related to labour and welfare,
human rights, health and safety, and environmental protection. It gives
corporations a free hand to extract "compensation" and
"investment assistance grants" from taxpayers' money in any country
that joins. All this is non-negotiable and has never been passed through any
democratic political process. The TPP is a fundamental revolution in law and
finance over how corporate entities do business with governments. It has the
potential to be of enormous detriment to the mass of the human population and
the natural world. I'm concerned that its ideas will spread; in fact we've seen
carbon copies of this kind of thing popping up all over the world before, the
European Union being the blueprint for NAFTA etc. The TPP may well emerge in a
new form elsewhere, like maybe the "TEP, Trans-European Partnership";
or the "TAP, Trans-American (or African) Partnership". This is no
less than an act of world economic conquest. See: http://www.exposethetpp.org/.
The solution, our resistance to the TPP and its inevitable
offshoots, is simple. We take control of our own economic lives the same way we
must every other aspect of them. We can form our own independent community
economies, with our own money systems, our own small business enterprises, our
own workers' cooperatives, our own organic farms. If these things haven't taken
off in your local area yet, then start one yourself. If you don't feel like
doing that then OK, at least be a patron to others who have. It's simple, just
bypass Tescos and head for your small local store. Sure, the prices might be
slightly higher, but the more people who buy local the quicker those shops can
lower their prices. We can beat this, we've just got to be aware, and take
action on our awareness together.
See here for essential
background: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-oxford-pound.html.
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