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from the nobody-else-will-look-out-for-you dept.
In Da Nang Vietnam, Australia and 10 other countries have tried to revive the TPP without the US.
Even though the analysis of the TPP has shown that the so called 'free trade agreement' has only minimal benefits and many drawbacks for developed nations the Australian Prime Minister is still set on having the agreement ratified. The Australian Prime Minister may be trying to push through the TPP before his government collapses due to the citizenship audit which is rapidly culling members of his party which could result in his party losing power in parliament. With the majority of the Australian public being against the TPP and with Malcolm Turnbull facing an election soon the reasons for this move to try to ratify the TPP is unknown.
If this trade agreement is accepted it will be the last in a series of detrimental trade agreements where Australia is on the wrong end of the stick. With Australia still reeling from the impact of the terrible China-Australia Free Trade Agreement the move to try to bring in another bad trade agreement may spell the end of the liberal government's long run in parliament.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by dwilson on Tuesday November 14 2017, @05:47AM (23 children)
I am Canadian.
Last I heard, (yesterday? day before? ish.) we aren't abstaining per-say, we only pushed to drop some of the more offensive intellectual property/patent sections. Thank god. I imagine most of the world has -no idea- how huge of a grassroots effort there was here to make that happen.
No, only the latest. Government is run by people, and people are a problem.
- D
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:28AM (5 children)
Let's eliminate the people running the govt and let the govts happy and problem free.
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @10:30AM (4 children)
Whereas the corporations who "sponsor" the politicians don't really give a damn about whether gays get to marry or not[1] (that's why they sometimes seem to sponsor both/all sides).
So the politicians give the voters what they want the most and the corporations what they want the most. The politicians get votes and $$$ and everyone gets what they want the most.
Democracy working as designed. Win-win. Kinda. ;)
[1] Even if the CEOs might personally care about "gay marriage" or "abortion" often when they are acting on behalf of the corporation, the resulting actions reflect a corporation that doesn't care e.g. the CEO's corporation will lobby for stronger monopolies for itself and not say a single word about "gay marriage".
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday November 14 2017, @10:52AM
*Many sides.
Big corporations and industries will almost always care more about trade/regulation legislation than confused citizens. Sometimes they care so much that they helpfully write the legislation themselves [nytimes.com].
Meanwhile, corporations getting involved in the culture wars [businessinsider.com] can [nytimes.com] backfire [foxnews.com]. They have only gained confidence to support gay marriage as public opinion on the topic has taken a sharp turn in about 2 decades (in the U.S., maybe you know more about Australia). Now corporations could be boycotted for not providing benefits to certain employees or doing business in certain states [reuters.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 14 2017, @02:07PM (1 child)
It's deleterious to repose so much power in entities that do not have humanity's best interests at heart. They in turn have completely subverted the political entities that are charged, on paper, with serving humanity's interests. It has produced a massive schism between what humanity wants and needs and what it has gotten.
The system that succeeds the coming revolution must address that directly: how do we check the concentration of wealth and power in very few hands?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:54PM
Not really. [soylentnews.org] Don't be another Chicken Little advocating your favorite fantasy.
Revolutions routinely don't do that. The French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolutions in the USSR didn't do that, for example. And what is the quality of that wealth that's being concentrated? Is it really worth what is claimed for its valuation? What I frequently hear from those who claim to care about wealth inequality is a downplaying of the value of wealth while simultaneous pumping up the supposed power of that wealth.
Finally, if wealth inequality is so important, then why do so few people bother accumulating wealth? I'm not seeing the reason to care when at least half of US citizens (among the wealthiest of the world's population) can't be bothered to save significant money.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday November 14 2017, @10:37PM
I think I remember everyone having very strong views about gay marriage while our parliament debated the issue. Fortunately for us the extreme religious fringe trotted out their usual arguments against and were roundly mocked, so the bill was passed.
A few years later it is almost completely uncontroversial and no-one really cares.
Gay marriage has even failed to undermine my own heterosexual marriage and I was promised that it would.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:30AM (5 children)
agree about.... it is that a lot of people in a lot of disparate nations are electing officials that are not acting in their interests under the false notion that someday they will be in the group whose interests those officials do represent and prefer spending time in that imaginary world rather than in the real world where they could enjoy freedoms where they are today if only they would elect officials who shared those values.
I am glad your Canadian grassroots efforts lead to change. Here in America we seem to be regressing on that front, having polarized harshly into the alt-left and the alt-right, with both groups mocking rather than listening to, the alt-inbetween.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @10:50AM (4 children)
It's pretty lame to call "both sides" in what is happening in the US. The right has simply gone ape shit - seemed to start during GW Bush when the propaganda machine started 24/7 with war/fear/guns/gold/gays. End of America!111!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday November 14 2017, @12:32PM (3 children)
The right has gained, no doubt there.
As for going ape shit, that's hardly new. Those sort of people have always been around. About 30% of the population finds thinking for themselves such hard work, life very uncertain and scary, and would rather follow a Great Leader anywhere, even if that means war and mass executions, in hopes that it will lead to the Promised Land. They won't follow just anyone, has to be someone who seems to be one of them.
When they become so powerful that they can push the nation their way, watch out. That's what lead to Nazi Germany and Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Such movements have soon collapsed when the nation is no longer able to maintain the lies and illusions, and the war machine runs short on material, labor, and cannon fodder. It may be that soldiers and war casualties disproportionately come from this 30% of people. The worst thing the rest of us can do is stand by and let the greedy rich push those people to the edge, corrupt and steal all they can, let the powerful make life genuinely more uncertain and scary for them, meanwhile framing some other group for their troubles. Blame the liberals, or the Jews, Muslims, Catholics, brown people, gay people and purple cartoon characters, scientists and nerds, even financiers, whatever. Revolutions feed on trouble.
Now that we have nuclear bombs, humanity can't afford total war, that's a consequence of this problem that we can no longer accept.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @02:11PM
and it never seems to thin out the people causing the problem. they take root like weeds and take over again, given enough time and distractiosn that the other mindsets cause.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @03:39PM (1 child)
Hitler demonized the Jews, blaming them for pretty much everything. Jews were the target of the day.
Today's left likes to blame the white males. Merely posting "It's OK to be white" on college campuses has caused the left to freak out pretty well. The left employs a "progressive stack" instead of equality; they have to have a villain to blame.
The rest of the politics mostly match up too. The only difference is perhaps the choice of globalism over nationalism.
Like today's left, Hitler had a fondness for Islam. You can find Korans with swastikas on the cover.
Like today's left, Hitler was into social programs. He made workers join a union. He exerted government control over industry.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday November 14 2017, @10:41PM
So much historical revisionism in this post I don't even know where to start.
Possibly the stupidest thing is that there is a "left" in US politics.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:31AM (1 child)
With US out of the TPP, what stopped the canadian side renegotiate the IP side?
I don't think Vietnam or Philippines would have objected.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:54PM
I think it IS due at least in part to the grass root pressure: Trudeau WANTS to feed his piggies, but the sheep are a woken giant.
Woken. Woken?
Supposably?
The sheep have woken?
Supposably!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Redundant) by frojack on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:45AM (2 children)
Even after we've seen it, nobody is fully aware of how many under the table codicils Obama had tacked on to that monstrosity. (And no, I'm not forgetting that John Boehner and Paul Ryan were un-indited co-conspirators in that effort.)
While you were fretting about the largely sacrificial "intellectual property/patent sections" who knows what is in 800 pages of crap nobody was allowed to read until the bitter end?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 14 2017, @02:13PM (1 child)
Was anybody actually allowed to read it? The most I read was that Congressmen had to go into a triple-sealed vault, naked, with no paper, pencil, or Blackberry, to read the text of the treaty. And then afterward they were roofied to ensure they forgot what they had read.
Me, I don't give a shit what they claim was in it, but anything put under those kinds of constraints are nothing a democracy should have anything to do with. I really rather want to subject all the diplomats and authors of that treaty to public pillory for even proposing those constraints.
Even with all the chaos and idiocy of the Trump presidency, he still did a massive good by killing the TPP. It was a greater good than all the last three presidents before him managed, combined. For that reason I would still choose Trump over Hillary, the venal, the corrupt, the apostate.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @04:15PM
However, I heard that Trump is inserting elements of the TPP into the NAFTA renegotiation [thenation.com]. Don't be fooled by his sneaky bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:39AM
The last that this government led by Turnbull will put in as they are dead in the water now with the citizenship scandal culling their ranks
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @09:33AM (4 children)
(Fellow leaf.) Holy shit. Do you have more on the exact changes?
I produce music and the thing basically said they wanted to send me to butt-rape prison for sampling orphaned works.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday November 14 2017, @09:49AM (1 child)
Extradition to the U.S.?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @11:01AM
Probably. Even the Canadian stuff I've sampled is mostly on US-owned labels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @10:53AM (1 child)
Why do you want actual information? You've been TOLD by someone on the internets that you're going to butt-rape prison. DO YOU WANT TO GET BUTT-RAPED???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @11:04AM
I read the ratification candidate draft of the TPP back when the US was involved. It invents new copyright violations and criminalizes them, among many existing ones.