Photo credit: PopularResistance.org
Today is the international day of action against the democracy-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement being negotiated in secret by regional governments and 600-plus supra-national corporations. Several dozen social justice organizations around the world have formed an international coalition to oppose this corporate coup d'état. Here's how
Citizens Trade Campaign describe it:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a massive new international trade pact being pushed by the U.S. government at the behest of transnational corporations. The TPP is already being negotiated between the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and most recently, Japan — which together cover approximately 40% of the global economy. But it is also specifically intended as a “docking agreement” that other Pacific Rim countries would join over time, with the Philippines, Thailand, Colombia and others already expressing interest. It is poised to become the largest Free Trade Agreement in the world.
The Obama administration’s embrace of the Bush-negotiated Korea, Panama and Colombia Free Trade Agreements leaves many worried that the Trans-Pacific Partnship will become nothing but a massive new NAFTA-style agreement. Indeed, while none of the negotiating text for the FTA has ever been officially released, it is already clear that trade negotiators are using past free trade agreements as their basic starting point for this one. The leaked text of several chapters, in fact, show rollbacks from the Bush years on topics like access to medicine and zero progress on investment.
Photo Credit: Solidarity-US.org / Samuel Hernández
To find out about protest rallies against the TPP around the country, visit the
Flush The TPP "Action" page. You'll see a map of the U.S. There are rallies planned in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Portland, Denver, Houston, Dallas, New York, Chicago, and many other cities in the U.S. and around the world.
Please share this information on Twitter and Facebook... I'll be sending updates from the rally in San Francisco (via Twitter).
Flush the TPP - Stop The Global Corporate Coup!
FlushTheTPP.org is an action campaign to Stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). We invite you to join us. In order to stop the TPP we need to act quickly and in solidarity with people in other countries. This massive trade agreement is a high priority for transnational corporations, and they are working fast to make it law.
The TPP affects many issues, including worker’s rights and wages, environmental collapse and climate change, sovereignty of nations and democratic rule of law, Internet freedom and online creativity, food safety and agriculture, healthcare and financial regulation (including controls over the flow of capital), and much more. For a quick overview of some of the issues, click through the slides on our home page. While this website is focused on action to stop the TPP, if you want to learn more details about what it is, visit the websites to the right, or check out this list of articles.
Many groups have been working to stop the TPP for a long time, including a number of fair trade coalitions, labor and environmental organizations, and others. (Check out the North American Unity Statement, and add your organization to the list of endorsers.) PopularResistance.org joined the movement to oppose the TPP and worked with some of these groups to develop this campaign...
Images: Flush the TPP
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Sockpuppets & Trolls Watch: Their aim is to disrupt, to annoy, to introduce "noise" in order to prevent meaningful discussions of issues. Their tactics include casting aspersions (attack on the reputation or integrity), and ad hominems, where instead of addressing issues, they attack the character of people. They also engage in mockery, and logical fallacies. A good source of information about the tactics used by sockpuppets, trolls and hacks is "The 15 Rules of Web Disruption." Once you familiarize yourself with those tactics, it is pretty easy to spot the potential troll. Once spotted, the best thing is to ignore them. [Image credit: Jacob Bøtter from Copenhagen, Denmark]