"Under the treaty it would be illegal to tax financial trans-actions, prevent banks from speculating with depositors' money, limit the size of companies, regulate imports and exports of oil and natural gas in order the protect the environment. Government power over education, health and public services would be curtailed, Big Pharma would be able to block generic drugs, internet providers could legally spy on us, trash content and even deprive us of access."
As part of a worldwide plan, these agreements are not only detrimental to American workers. Unfortunately, even independent news sources cannot bring themselves to tell them that their foreign counterparts are in the same leaky boat as they are, therefore depriving them of jobs will not be a solution. As environmental threats pile onto economic uncertainty, it is more important than ever for Americans to widen their access to news: France 24 gives daily, detailed coverage of events in Europe, Africa and the Far East, while RT devotes considerable air-time to under-reported American news, international finance, the BRICS countries, and Latin America. Together they reveal the rich tapestry of a world that Americans only hear about when their leaders decide they "require' intervention, but whose reality informs what happens to them.
In 2000, the Andean peasants of Bolivia successfully defeated attempts by international water companies to tax their life-giving resource, ultimately bringing Evo Morales to the presidency. The question now is whether together, the citizens of the world, coming from widely different cultures and political traditions, will be able to defeat the ultimate threat to freedom and solidarity: the total privatization of their lives for profit. The first step is to resist the temptation to focus on individual aberrations. This drains energy from the one big fight that determines all the rest: that against the international military/industrial/financial complex.
Americans need to realize that on-line petitions are mere irritants to the system - the externalities of doing business. Recent revolts in places as different as Turkey and Brazil against the consumer society indicate a much greater level of awareness of what is at stake than exists currently in the United States. Americans are still divided over a health care reform that is still far from universal coverage, while the rest of the world considers it an aberration for education and health to be privatized. This dichotomy shows that the best investment American activists can make of their time and efforts while participating as little as possible in the world money has built, is to join with their counterparts in Europe and Asia to scuttle TAFTA and TPP. Nothing we can do would have as significant an impact on the power structure that is preparing to sell humanity down the river.
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