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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday June 24 2015, @05:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the pass-it-to-know-what-is-in-it dept.

The BBC reports:

Legislation key to US President Barack Obama's trade agenda has passed a key hurdle in the Senate, just two weeks after it appeared to have failed.

The bill known as the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) or, more commonly, Fast Track, makes it easier for presidents to negotiate trade deals.

Supporters see it as critical to the success of a 12-nation trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The bill is expected to pass a final vote in the Senate on Wednesday.

Tuesday's 60-37 vote - just barely meeting the required 60 vote threshold - is the result of the combined efforts of the White House and many congressional Republicans to push the bill through Congress, despite the opposition of many Democrats.

This is primarily a tech news site, and it's generally good to avoid political news, but the TPP is a huge trade deal, negotiated in secret, that will have large ramifications for the world economy that affects us all, and that also has large implications for the accountability of major world governments to their citizens.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:43AM (#200847)
    Voting is not worthless, the system is getting voters what they say they want. That voters are easily influenced or tricked is their problem and responsibility as voters to fix.

    1) There are more than 2 parties. And when > 95% of the voters who bother voting keep voting for either Twiddledee or Twiddledum why should the Two Parties change? They might lose votes if they change too much.

    The Two Parties will change when the voters start voting for other parties. Those other parties may never win, but if the Two Parties change enough to do some of what you want, then it works better than just not voting at all, or the insanity of voting for the same thing and expecting different.

    2) what most voters care about is different from what the corporations and minorities like you care about. And the system sure seems to be delivering what they want the most.

    Far more voters care more about guns, gay marriage, abortion, marijuana than about TPP. So the politicians give the voters the gay marriage stuff, and they give their sponsors the TPP stuff. Win-win. It's happened for marijuana already - voters started caring more about marijuana and so some states have changed their laws accordingly.

    Seriously - go around and ask voters what they think of guns or gay marriage. Then ask them about TPP. Even after informing them about TPP I bet most of them still won't care as much. Somehow many allegedly straight people seem to care a lot about gay marriage despite gay marriage not affecting them, and the most gay couples not having children and thus all those "protect the family" stuff is irrelevant and bullshit.

    Basic divide and conquer.

    So we' are the minority, the weird ones for caring more about stuff like the TPP.
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