#StopCetaTTIP #StopTISA #CETA #StopTTIP

I'm not at my desk today. Very early this morning, I headed out to do what little I could to make a difference. Today, I'm in Frankfurt am Main, demonstrating against the so-called "free-trade" agreements that our governments are trying to ram down our throats. We need to stop these -- all of them (there are no "good" ones) -- so today I would just like to remind you why:

1. These agreements affect every single one of us, from the highest ranking politician to the highest paid CEO of an international corporation to the lowest paid employee in any of the countries involved in the agreement and all those citizens of those countries, including those not yet born. Any agreement that comprehensive can't be negotiated in secret, for it affects too many people. When so many people have so little to say about what happens to them, it is undemocratic at best, but subversive at worst.
2. If, as we know these agreements foresee, extra-judicial, extra-political, extra-legal "courts" must be established that take precedence over the duly and democratically elected governments of the countries involved, then these agreements are additionally undemocratic and by definition partial to the negotiators and not those afflicted.
3. There is no reasonable, let alone reliable, research that supports the claims regarding increased economic activity or numbers of jobs to be created. Any and every claim is nothing more than a statement, at best, a fraudulent depiction at worst, and should be rejected in either case.
4. Agreements that favor large, multi-national corporations discriminate against and are antithetical to small, local companies (not only mom-and-pop organizations, but also small and mid-sized regionally active ones as well). In other words, such agreements discriminate against an established and desired class of businesses.
5. Although touted as "free-trade" agreements, there is nothing in them (at least not as far as any of the leaked documentation regarding the agreement or the negotiations is concerned, that reflects free-market theory. You don't have to be a fan or advocate of Smith or Friedman to feel that your needs aren't being met here.
6. The most fundamental assumptions underlying any such agreement are based on philosophies and economic theories that have no justification in or documented relevance to actual social and economic realities. (The neo-liberal assumption that all actors in all markets act out of "enlightened self-interest" has never been reasonably or convincingly demonstrated.) There is a serious disconnect between theory and reality.
7. The frameworks that are to be established by such agreements derive from the assumption that governmental intervention in markets is undesirable, yet the benefactors of such intervention are the strongest supporters of such agreements for they have been assured that such interventions will continue once the agreements are in place. In other words, for them, they can't lose.
8. Another underlying assumption of the agreement is that privatized undertakings are always more efficient than government-influenced undertakings, but there is not a shred of reliable evidence anywhere, worldwide, that supports the contention. In other words, the agreement is based and founded on premises that have no basis in reality.
   
9. There are many other, time-tested and proven, ways to promote increased economic activity between entities. There is not just one way. There are alternatives.

All of these issues are known. In other words, they are the simple conclusions that can be drawn from the available documentation, the political discussion, and the factors that have been made public. It hasn't been easy to get this far, for the public discussion up until now has been thwarted by vicious propaganda, clouded by distractions and irrelevant side-discussions, and undermined by so-called experts who are taking part in the negotiations but who are unwilling to divulge necessary details.

If for no other reason, all of these so-called free-trade agreements should be rejected because of the negotiators' insistence upon secrecy. I don't care that education has been driving into the ground in recent decades. I don't care that "the public" is allegedly not well-informed enough to make a competent assessment of the agreement itself. Business and trade are not that complicated that even half-way reasonable individuals can't form an informed opinion about them. The fact that free-trade-agreement whistleblowers have been so aggressively pursued is reason enough to question the legitimacy of the agreements themselves. When one has to resort to such heavy-handed methods for a matter that is purportedly in all our best interest, I don't think it is unreasonable to conclude that perhaps the advocates aren't putting all their cards on the table. And if they aren't, I think it's more than reasonable to ask "why". And I haven't even begun to address the environmental, safety-standards, quality-standards, health, healthcare, or infrastructure issues, just to name the most obvious, but certainly not all of them, that need to be considered as well. The list goes on and on. There is truly not a single aspect of our lives not addressed in some way by these agreements, but we should trust that the negotiators are acting in all our best interests. It boggles the mind.

The mere notion of "secretly negotiated, free-trade agreements, which -- just to add a bit of spice to the discussion -- really not even need to be approved by the governments of the countries involved is, well, suspect. Upon what experience am I -- or anyone else -- supposed to base the voluntary acceptance of something so far reaching being negotiated by people with a proven track record of deception and misinformation?

Yes, that's what I thought. And that's exactly the reason I'm not at my desk, but rather on the streets, in Frankfurt, to give voice to and to make a statement against what is being imposed upon us against our collective will. There is a growing number of citizens who want to know more and deserve to be informed. There is a growing number of families who have questions that need to be answered. There is a growing number of individuals who doubt the veracity of the claims being made. There is a growing will in the citizenry that wants to be included in the democratic discussion that should be taking place. All of these things the supporters of the agreement would like to deny.

It is amazing, if not breath-taking, in this day and age that in light of the minimal information that has leaked to the public that non-participants can be in favor of such agreements. From all we know about what is involved, we have to ask ourselves upon what are the proponents basing their approval? Still, there are those who want to force these agreements through come what may. But, for my part, I can't see why they're necessary, nor can I see what advantages they are going to bring, nor can I just sit back and wait to see whether the supporters get their way at the expense of the rest of us.

I'm not at my desk today. Very early this morning, I headed out to do what little I could to make a difference. Today, I'm in Frankfurt am Main, demonstrating against the so-called "free-trade" agreements that our governments are trying to ram down our throats. We need to stop these -- all of them (there are no "good" ones). Our future, and the future of our children and grandchildren hang in the balance.

I have to do something other than just wait till it's too late.

Free trade isn't fair trade, if you're big enough

Instead of a lot of theorizing and legalistic mumbo-jumbo, let me try to make clear what TTIP means in practical terms. Hence, a couple of mini-cases, which is no easy task, since my American friends pretty much have no say in anything any more and the few consumer protections they had are continually legislated into oblivion by a pro-big-business Congress. The real impacts, though, for all the diehard States-rightists will be that they will no longer matter because a small town in Oklahoma won't be able to do anything that might discriminate against a company in Poland.

For example, say Smalltown High School has a deal with a local caterer for providing school lunches. The caterer provides jobs for two-dozen employees and procures all its raw materials from local producers. The time comes to renew the contract. It will have to be put up for public tender and this tender must be open to anyone in the trade-agreement area. A Roumanian entrepreneur has to be able to bid on the job just like the local caterer. The local caterer, however, must now conform to international legislation, the local rules no longer apply. Getting in consultants, not the least of whom are familiar with international law, increases the caterer's overhead and has to increase prices. The Roumanian wins the contract, the caterer has to let most of the staff go, so the Roumanians pick them up are just over half of what they were making before. All the raw materials are sourced from discounters worldwide, prepared in Vietnam and frozen before being sent to Oklahoma for thawing and feeding the kids. The other local suppliers feel the pinch, let staff go, but there are no other jobs around. The kids are still getting lunch, but some of their parents are now unemployed or even unemployable.

Or, Midsize City has plans to develop a new shopping mall just outside of town. The plans are for 500,000 sq. ft. of retail space and A&B, a Swedish clothier has signed a long-term lease for 30,000 sq. ft of space. Complications in the implementation arise and the mall will end up being smaller than originally planned. In negotiating with all the prospective tenants, A&B's square-footage gets reduced to 10,000 sq. ft. Less space, less profit over the 25-year lease, so they sue the city for the expected profits over the duration of the lease. The suit, however, cannot be argued in local or state courts, rather it will be referred to an independent court organized under the terms of the trade agreement. Midsize City loses, but is broke because with money spent on legal fees and compensation, it no longer has any money to complete the mall, and so it now gets sued by everyone involved because they all expected to make money on the deal.

Unrealistic scenarios? Not at all. In both cases, should things really go sour, I don't doubt for a minute that a major player -- perhaps a major fast-food chain in the first scenario or a real-estate hedgefund in the second one -- jumps in to fill the void. And we all know, in the end, just how well that works out.

For all of you who think that government is worthless anyway, just who are you going to turn to for help? For those of you who think that the local government should at least care about the local citizenry, what support can it offer? For those of you who think that some form of governance is necessary to ensure the safety and security of the community, what does the community even have to say? No, it won't happen right away and it won't happen all at once but sooner or later, everything described here will come to pass and there won't be a thing you can do about it.

Does your health insurance mandate buying generic medications? After TTIP, patents can be held forever, no more generics, except for what's on the market at the time of the ratification. In fact, all intellectual property will always belong to the property holder and we know how well that works out for small companies and individuals now.

It's up to you. You can sit back, do nothing, and take whatever comes whenever it comes your way, but the past weekend made exceedingly clear to me that big business has anything but my interests at heart, and they've got the best allies money can buy.

If you think government is bad, try big business

On the February 26 & 27, there was a conference on the pending free-trade agreement between the USA and the EU, known as TTIP. It was the most interesting two days I've spent in a long time. About 500 people from all over Germany showed up, and there was the odd visitor/speaker from Spain, the UK, the USA, and France there as well. There could have been others, but I didn't run into them.

The EU, or better, the European Commission (EC), is pushing hard to get the negotiations over with this year. In October last year, over a quarter of a million people showed up in Berlin to protest the agreement, and despite strong opposition, a citizen's initiative collected over 3 million signature on a petition to the EC to stop the negotiations. Of course, none of this has stopped anything and the 12th round of negotiations took place in Brussels last week as well. While I am aware that most of my Europeans friends and acquaintances are familiar with this proposed treaty, with the negotiations on the transpacific agreement completed and the clown car and circus of the primaries blaring at full volumne, I'm not sure how many of my American compatriots are, so here's the deal and why you should care.

The last big agreement of this sort was NAFTA, which I'm sure just about everyone has forgotten, but they shouldn't have. Despite all the hype of the government at that time about benefits and economic growth, the impact to the American worker couldn't have been more devastating: more than a million jobs lost, unions busted, wages depressed, and job security thrown out the window along with most regulation and legal restrictions on irresponsible industrial activities nullified.

No, NAFTA didn't cause the financial meltdown in 2008 nor is it solely responsible for global warming, but I can assure you that unlabeled Frankenfood, Nestle's plundering of the Great Lakes while Flint's children are poisoned, and a $15bn lawsuit against the US (which they have little chance of winning ... so pony-up taxpayer) because the people shutdown Keystone XL are the result. But, NAFTA was only a dress rehearsal for the real thing which TTP and TTIP are bringing to us now.

The pro-TTIP propaganda is the same as it was with NAFTA: economic benefits beyond belief for all, which is anything but the case. Truth be told, this is a treaty by big business and for big business and this time they're not going to let little things like national soverignty, the will of the people or elections of any kind get in their way. Why do I think so? Well, how about the fact that

• the negotiations are conducted by non-elected governmental appointees
• all negotiations are conducted in complete secrecy
• elected officials (members of Congress, the EU or EU-member-state parliaments) have no access to the text of the agreement except under certain limited and restrictive conditions
• anyone who does get access to any part of the agreement is forbidden to talk to anybody about anything they read
• the treaty, being a matter of international law, supercedes any national law of any signatory country

just to name a few of the most disturbing.

I'm sure there are many of you who are saying, "So what? The big guys do what they want and we have to see how we manage to get along", but what is most unsettling is the fact that the agreements stack the deck against the little guy, so if you think you have to put up with crap now, just wait. And for my European readers, I'd like to remind you that the handling of the Greek affair was also a bit of prototyping for what is in store for all of us once the agreement is through.

So, it would seem that this post is running over, so even though I don't like to do so generally, I'll have to pick up on this next time as well. Do come back ... it gets better.