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posted by n1 on Monday May 18 2015, @06:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the national-sovereignty-in-peril dept.

Common Dreams reports:

Now that official debate has begun, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants to pass Fast Track bill before Memorial Day.

[...] The U.S. Senate on [May 14] approved a motion to begin debate on the Fast Track authority President Barack Obama needs to advance controversial trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The measure passed 65-33.

Senate Democrats blocked the first attempt to proceed on the trade legislation on Tuesday, but backtracked in the wake of further negotiations--and intense pressure from the White House.

Boing Boing warns URGENT: Senate backtracks on TPP fasttrack--call Congress to oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership

TPP is a treaty negotiated under extraordinary secrecy--Members of Congress were threatened with jail for discussing its contents--and virtually everything we know about it comes from leaks. One thing we do know is that it contains a provision to let multinational corporations sue governments for passing environmental and labor laws that undermine their profits (similar provisions in other treaties have been used by tobacco companies to sue the Australian government over a law mandating plain packaging for cigarettes). We also know that TPP hardens the worst elements of US copyright, trumping Congress's right to review the term of copyright and the scope of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA (these are the rules that allowed John Deere to claim that farmers don't own their tractors, because of the copyrights in the software in their engines).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation needs your help to contact your Congresscritter to block this. TPP is a fragile monster, and it can really only pass if the Congress abdicates its legislative authority and lets the President make up laws and legal obligations without Congressional input. The Republican Congress--and many Democrats--is vulnerable to messages from voters opposing the extension of these powers to the President.

Related: Fast-Track Trade Measure Fails Key Test Vote In Senate

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @11:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @11:24PM (#184875)

    We know over 2000 years that Democracy has problems. Whether you agree with all Plato's arguments or not, I'd say history shows that there is a real danger that democracy selects for people that win elections, which is not the same as people who govern well.

    Your mistake--and the mistake of many others--is in believing that democratic elections are to select people who govern well. It does not. As others have pointed out the painfully obvious, politicians routinely promise one thing while campaigning and do another after being elected. Rather democratic elections mean that elected officials who govern poorly can be easily removed, at least in theory. Before the birth of modern democracy, those who governed poorly often could only be removed by (typically violent) revolutions or assassination. In that sense, modern democracy is a definite improvement. Of course, it goes without saying that we can and should make some improvements to the system. It seems to me that one thing that needs desperate attention is to raise up a better informed electorate. It makes it a bit harder to bamboozle voters if they can immediately see through the obvious bullshit that a politician is proffering to them at election time.