Wikileaks has just given the rest of us a little access to what the most powerful corporations in the world have been reading, absorbing, influencing, maybe even dictating — the new terrible trade deal called the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) written to give global corporations all they want and accelerate the world’s economic race to the bottom.
If the negotiators of these trade deals gave half as much attention to child labor as they do to intellectual property rights and the patents of big Pharma who seem to want to deny as many life saving medications as possible, some of us might have more faith in the process.
But it is just like NAFTA, CAFTA, and FTAA. All the benefits of free trade go to the Elites by overriding national sovereignty, environmental protections, and workers’ rights.
How is it that American negotiators are so hell-bent to sacrifice our quality of life for the sake of the richest and most powerful corporations in the world?
I think I just answered my own question. Powerful! The growing power of the Financial Elite here and around the world is the most dangerous threat to democracy since World War II.
It is way past time to end these TPP negotiations. Start all over if you must, but start with what is best for the people of the world — not the greediest, faceless machines of oppression — global corporations. The Walton family has quite enough money. Their neighbors in the Arkansas Ozarks don’t. Big Pharma has quite enough money, but the people of the world don’t have enough access to medicine.
Unfettered, deregulated capitalism always ultimately destroys.
Photo source: DonkeyHotey on Flickr via Creative Commons License: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
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