OMNI
US WESTWARD IMPERIALISM, PACIFIC OCEAN, EAST ASIA, TPP NEWSLETTER #17, July 13, 2015.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
(http://omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/#1 May 8, 2012; #2 August 22, 2012; #3 Nov. 25, 2012; #4 Jan. 12, 2013; #5 March 27, 2013; #6 July 5, 2013; #7 August 12, 2013; #8 Nov. 8, 2013; #9 Jan. 2, 2014; #10 Feb. 3, 2014; #11 Feb. 26, 2014; #12 April 21, 2014; #13, June 26, 2014; #14 Sept. 24, 2014; #15, Feb. 18, 2015; April 12, 2015 ). Thanks to Marc Quigley
What’s at stake:
Each of these newsletters is a small anthology intended to provide knowledge for personal communication and letters and columns to the editor. All together they constitute a large collection of writings on the subject from the point of view of world peace, nonviolence, social and economic justice, human rights, participatory democracy, affirmative government, stewardship of the planet’s earth and air and all species.
Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and ecology movement and an informed citizenry as the foundation for opposition to empire, militarism, and wars. Write Letter or Column
Here is the link to the Index: http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/ See: Continental US Westward Expansion, Genocide, Indigenous People of Americas, Korean War, Pentagon, TPP, US Imperialism, Vietnam War, WWII Colonial Pacific, and more.
See Nuclear Free Independent Pacific DAY.doc, Marshall Islands Suits Against Nuclear Nations, No Bases Network, Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
My blog:
No to the War Department/Yes to the Peace Department
Contents # 16 at end
Contents: US Westward Imperialism, Pacific/E. Asia Newsletter #17, July 12, 2015
(See US Continental Westward Imperialism Newsletters)
US Westward Imperialism Network of Military Bases
From Tacoma to Tajikistan
Opposition to New Base on Okinawa
Pentagon’s Vietnam War Whitewash Campaign and VfP Counter Campaign
US Global Imperial Military Bases and Nuclear Threat
David Vine, Books on Global Harms and Diego Garcia
No to the New Trident WMD
Mona Lee, GZ Center: Ending the Nuclear Arms Race
TPP Trans-Pacific Partnership
(OMNI published 4 articles in #15, 10 in #16, now 9 in #17)
Fran Alexander, Fooling the People
Joyce Hale: Benefitting Corporations, Can the Public Follow the Dots?
Senator Sessions Exposes Contents
Grayson: TPP vs. Democracy
Warren to Obama
Baker, Four Reports including how Corporate Media Report TPP: The
Washington Post
Washington Post
Contact President Obama and Congressmen
US WESTWARD IMPERIALISM, PACIFIC, E. ASIA NETWORK OF BASES
FROM TACOMA TO TAJIKISTAN, Google Search, July 12, 2015
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zQVqvB9UmUTc...
Google
Map of major US bases within close proximity to Iran, in addition to other NATOmilitary sites near the Islamic Republic. Locations shown are semi-permanent ...Turkmenistan: Secret U.S. Base For Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran ...www.globalresearch.ca/turkmenistan-secret-u-s-base-for.../20411
Aug 2, 2010 - Turkmenistan: Secret U.S. Base For Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran Campaigns ... In September 2004, at the Mary-2 airfield, U.S. military experts ...
May 1, 2012 - Dozens of US and allied forces' military installations dot the region, from ... Turkey and Israel to the west, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan to the ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/news/military-bases/ The Huffington Post
Did you know the U.S. military maintains roughly 1,000 military installations .... This year Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan turn ...
Opposing US Base Construction on Okinawa
Global Network [globalnet@mindspring.com]To: GN List Serve [globenet@yahoogroups.com] Wednesday, January 08, 2014 7:57 AM
STATEMENT
We oppose construction of a new US military base within Okinawa, and support the people of Okinawa in their struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment
We the undersigned oppose the deal made at the end of 2013 between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Governor of Okinawa Hirokazu Nakaima to deepen and extend the military colonization of Okinawa at the expense of the people and the environment. Using the lure of economic development, Mr. Abe has extracted approval from Governor Nakaima to reclaim the water off Henoko, on the northeastern shore of Okinawa, to build a massive new U.S. Marine air base with a military port. . . .
We support the people of Okinawa in their non-violent struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment. The Henoko marine base project must be canceled and Futenma returned forthwith to the people of Okinawa .
January 2014
Norman Birnbaum, Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University
Herbert Bix, Emeritus Professor of History and Sociology, State University of New York at Binghamton
Reiner Braun, Co-president International Peace Bureau and Executive Director of International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms
Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
John W. Dower, Professor Emeritus of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
And more.
PENTAGON WHITEWASH OF VIETNAM WAR
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the landing of U.S. ground troops in Da Nang, Vietnam. Many consider this to be the beginning of the American War in Vietnam. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the war the Pentagon is undertaking a ten-year, $65-million campaign to rewrite and whitewash the history of the war in Southeast Asia.
In response, Veterans for Peace has announced the Vietnam War Full Disclosure project to offer a more truthful history of the war. <More>
For more information, email Doug Rawlings @Rawlings@maine.edu or visit the Full Disclosure Campaign website.
In response, Veterans for Peace has announced the Vietnam War Full Disclosure project to offer a more truthful history of the war. <More>
For more information, email Doug Rawlings @Rawlings@maine.edu or visit the Full Disclosure Campaign website.
GLOBAL SYSTEM OF MILITARY BASES
See OMNI Newsletters on US Bases Covering the Planet http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/564756/21224228/1355159762283/2012-12-09.pdf?token=YO93oxgp%2F2o06AU0k1eU1C2Xdx8%3D
Bases Around the World, Westward? Eastward? From San Diego to Diego Garcia, and from Virginia Beach to Vladivostok
David Vine, Essay and Books on US Worldwide Bases and Diego Garcia
WESTWARD IMPERIALISM FROM Bangor, Washinton, Nuclear Submarines to
IMPERIALISM
Bases Around the World Westward and Eastward
Recommended Reading From The American Empire Project |
The Truth About Diego Garcia And 50 Years of Fiction About an American Military Base by David Vine  First, they tried to shoot the dogs. Next, they tried to poison them with strychnine. When both failed as efficient killing methods, British government agents and U.S. Navy personnel used raw meat to lure the pets into a sealed shed. Locking them inside, they gassed the howling animals with exhaust piped in from U.S. military vehicles. Then, setting coconut husks ablaze, they burned the dogs' carcasses as their owners were left to watch and ponder their own fate.The truth about the U.S. military base on the British-controlled Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia is often hard to believe. It would be easy enough to confuse the real story with fictional accounts of the island found in the Transformers movies, on the television series 24, and in Internet conspiracy theories about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. |
Coming Soon From David Vine |
From Italy to the Indian Ocean, from Japan to Honduras, a far-reaching examination of the perils of American military bases overseas American military bases encircle the globe. More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. still stations its troops at nearly a thousand locations in foreign lands. These bases are usually taken for granted or overlooked entirely, a little-noticed part of the Pentagon's vast operations. But in an eye-opening account, Base Nation shows that the worldwide network of bases brings with it a panoply of ills—and actually makes the nation less safe in the long run. |
David Vine
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, American U
· Author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, August 2015) and Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton, 2009), David Vine’s work focuses on issues including U.S. foreign and military policy, military bases, forced displacement, and human rights. He is the co-author, with the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, of the Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual, or Notes on Demilitarizing American Society (Prickly Paradigm, 2009). His other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian (London), Mother Jones, Foreign Policy in Focus, Chronicle of Higher Education, and International Migration, among others. In addition to almost fifteen years of research about Diego Garcia and U.S. military bases abroad, David has conducted research about gentrification in Brooklyn, NY, environmental refugees, homelessness and mental illness, and DC-area basketball. For more information and links to David's writing, see www.davidvine.net.
· Degrees
PhD, Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York
MA, Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York
BA, Sociology, Wesleyan University
MA, Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York
BA, Sociology, Wesleyan University
Bringing the Message of No to New Trident
to the Big Apple
By Leonard Eiger April 2015 in Ground Zero [GZ is the permanent watch at the Trident nuclear submarine base at Bangor, Washington. You will appreciate their work and newsletters.–Dick]
Article after article in the past few months has be-moaned the U.S. Navy’s “aging” ballistic missile submarine fleet, touted the need for a replacement, or explained the need to fund the new fleet outside of normal funding channels (can you say “slush fund”?).
If some members of Congress have their way, the OHIO Class Replacement (or New Trident) will have its own special slush fund. With the funding in hand (outside of the accepted Congressional budget channels, and outside the Navy’s shipbuilding budget) it would be smooth sailing for General Dynamics Electric Boat, a company that stands to reap huge profits from the construction of the new submarines. Electric Boat (in Groton, Connecticut) expects to see its workforce grow from its current 13,000 employees to 18,000 by 2030, based in large part on New Trident. Not surprisingly, the two members of Congress who are the most vocal proponents of New Trident (and its rather nontraditional funding method) are from Connecticut.
Yet, beyond the funding issues lies the fundamental question no one (in the corporate press) is asking — why build an outdated nuclear weapons system that will only serve to in-crease both global nuclear proliferation and the risk of either accidental or intentional nuclear war? The momentum pushing New Trident, and a host of other nuclear weapons pro-grams, is Cold War thinking. Tri-dent’s heyday should have ended long ago with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The US is creating a perceived need for nuclear weapons through its foreign policy pursuits, which place nuclear weapons front and center. A recent article referred to Trident as playing “an increasingly important role in America’s ability to deliver a nuclear punch.” The article also quotes Virginia Rep. Rob Whittman referring to Trident as “a national strategic asset. Newport News Ship-building in Virginia is another company that could gain from production of New Trident.
The ultimate question we need to ask is whether Tri-dent, and especially New Trident, is an asset or a liability. We don’t want to learn the answer the hard way.
We stand at a critical crossroads in the nearly seven decade-long struggle to abolish nuclear weapons; I think Dr.
King’s phrase “the fierce urgency of now” would be an understatement. A new Cold War is brewing, and it could end up involving more than just the US and Russia this time. At any rate, it is the US and Russia that remain the world’s nu-clear superpowers, and it is these countries that must lead the way to nuclear disarmament.
The 9th Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty will take place at the UN beginning in late April. The empty rhetoric of prior NPT Review Conferences makes me skeptical of the probability of progress towards “negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nu-clear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,” as Article VI of the NPT requires.
This makes it even more critical that civil society rise up and engaged citizens make their voices heard. Just prior to this year’s NPT meeting there will be a large gathering of people from many different movements at the Peace & Planet Conference on April 24 and 25. The conference will end with a march to the UN on April 26. On April 28 there will be nonviolent direct action at the US Mission to the UN. I will be participating in all of these events, representing Ground Zero. I will be drawing attention to the need to stop production of New Trident as well as trying to build a coalition of organizations to facilitate our power in speaking with a more unified voice for nuclear disarmament.
Each of us has some role to play in the struggle to abolish nuclear weapons; we all can (and must) do some-thing for the sake of future generations. I invite everyone to go to the Peace & Planet website to learn more. While there, click on the link under “Get Involved!” to sign the Petition for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The petition organizers have so far obtained over 5 million signatures!
In his book Confronting the Bomb, historian Lawrence Wittner wrote that it is not the conventional explanation of “deterrence” that has saved the world from nuclear annihilation over the past 65 years, but a “massive nuclear disarmament movement.” Let us hope that we will have a “massive” presence in New York City this April to send a clear message to the nuclear weapons states that the time for disarmament is NOW!
Making Connections to End the New Nuclear Arms Race
By Mona Lee April 2015 in Ground Zero
On August 8, 1945 when atomic bombs were falling on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was six years old and living on Chambers Road in Ferguson, Mo. Which at the time was a working class suburb of a predominantly poor black city. To this day, I vividly recall a photograph on the St. Louis Post Dispatch front page of Japanese faces distorted into hideous masks of terror. In school we learned this had been done to end the War.
Thus began the old nuclear arms race. From then on, that race escalated as later we were told the US nuclear arsenal was to prevent “the communists” from taking over the world. In Catholic school we learned that communism was the essence of evil although my mother, who lived in fear of my father losing his job, once told me that under communism she wouldn’t have to worry because the govern-ment gave everyone a job. I also remember my father saying that nuclear weapons made our country the most powerful nation on earth. Yet we were frequently reminded that the bombs could, and in fact most likely would, eventually destroy the world.
It was not until much later that I figured out why our country needed to be the most the most powerful nation. That was to control the world’s resources because our economic system, called capitalism, runs on the need for ever increasing profits for the wealthy. It is also capitalism’s insatiable hunger for profits that has increasingly deflated the wages and living standards of working people until today we have the most obscene income gap between rich and poor in more than a hundred years. And the people to whom the least of all this trickles down are today’s young people, especially African American descendants of slaves like the ones who now inhabit my home town, Ferguson.
Recently our government has decided to spend one trillion dollars to modernize its entire nuclear arsenal, thus enabling our weapons to destroy missile silos of other nations before they can not strike back. This, of course, has frightened Russia and other nuclear arms nations, thus triggering a new arms race that has made nuclear war more likely than it has been since the Cuban missile crisis. The capitalist ruling elites have decided that their profits are worth the risk of nuclear war.
So where will the trillion dollars come from to pay for this insanity?
From you and me and working class people of places like my home town where the African American teenager,Mike Brown, was shot by police the day before he was to enter College . . . like New York City where James Garner, another young black man was suffocated by police . . . like Cleveland where twelve year old Tamir Rice was shot while playing with a toy gun in a park . . . and countless other places where a bludgeoning US police state currently imprisons more African Americans than it once held as slaves.
On August 8 2015, 60 years after Hiroshima woke us up to audacity of our country’s military might, the Ferguson incident jolted us into the realization that this military power could be turned against its people as police, equipped with M16 rifles, riot gear and armored vehicles, descended upon peaceful protestors decrying the untimely death of their young neighbor. We learned that that all this war machinery had been supplied by the same military establishment that owns the nukes. An affective capitalist police state had been stealthily created in America, our “land of the free” without our knowledge. It took a shock wave like Ferguson to jolt the capitalist media into letting us know. I shudder to think what it might take to force them to inform us about the “New Nuclear Arms Race.”
During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 everyone with a TV set was sitting in front of it trembling and biting their nails. Yet when I spoke to nearly a hundred young activists gathered at the University of Washington last month, virtually none were aware of the new nuclear arms race. Most were unaware that the Trident Base Bangor is located in Hood Canal only 15 miles northwest of where we sat and contains the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons on theplanet. So of course, it had not occurred to them that an accident in loading or unloading a missile there could contaminate the entire Puget Sound Region.
Those young activists gathered that day at UW were some of the most aware people I know. Most had worked hard to deliver Seattle workers their famous $15 minimum wage; every one of them was clued in to the likelihood of capitalism’s insatiable thirst for profit destroying all life on the planet by disastrous climate change; most had marched to cry out that, “black lives matter.” But the recently in-creased threat of nuclear war had not crossed their radar screens, nor had it occurred to them how much good the millions of dollars poured into nuclear weapons modernization might otherwise do to further their many worthy causes like education, health care, public works, jobs programs. Two years before I had joined them to work on issues they cared about, and that’s what gave me the opportunity to ad-dress them on the nuclear threat and how it is integrally connected with all their other concerns.
Bruce Gagnon of Global Networks speaking at Ground Zero during the Martin Luther King Day Activities remind-ed us that, “All of our progressive movements are on the losing end of things these days. We’ve got to get out from behind our single issue silos and make connections between our various campaigns if we hope to have any success. I am going to explore going to the unemployment office, Social Security office, welfare office and hand out flyers that show the links between massive cost overruns on Navy warships, F-35 fighters, space war fighting technologies and the real cuts coming in social programs that are daily impacting the lives of people across the nation. When we begin to shine a light on these wasteful military programs for endless war, and help the public see the deadly connections to cuts in social program, then we can seriously talk about expanding our movements. Until we take these steps to connect thedots across issue lines, we will remain isolated, weak, and ultimately ineffective.”
The hundreds of leaflets we hand out will continue to be tossed into the nearest trash bins until we succeed in making those connections. All our efforts to awaken young people to the threat of nuclear war will fall upon deaf ears unless we call awareness to those connections.
That is why Ground Zero, along with other Seattle activists are planning an Earth Day Action in downtown Seattle on April 21, 2015. We will begin with leafleting, vigiling and street theatre at noon at West Lake Center Park in downtown Seattle. Complete with monks, candles, a casket holding the symbolic earth we will enact the same Memorial for the Earth street theatre Ground Zero performed at the Bangor Gate last month. Our leaflets will point out the way these extremely dangerous and extravagant military expenditures necessitate cuts in social programs and starve initiatives for education, health care, public works, jobs pro-grams, and dampen all progressive hopes for the future. From West Lake we will lead a funeral procession to the Federal Building, conduct the Memorial again there as well, and meet with our Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cant-well.
We hope you will join us. Everyone is welcome.
TPP
Alexander, Hale, Long, Sessions, Grayson, Warren, Kowalski, Cole, Baker
Tricks of the trade By Fran Alexander
Posted: May 5, 2015 at 1 a.m.
·
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
-- Abraham Lincoln
Let's establish right off that for me to be discussing trade agreements is right up there with me personally waxing eloquent on brain surgery or nuclear physics. It won't happen. However, like all high-powered and esoteric topics, eventually the consequences of actions taken in lofty realms become more understandable when they translate directly or indirectly down into the lives and finances of us, the common folk. So it is with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement involving about a dozen, mostly Pacific Rim, countries.
As with the North America Free Trade Agreement and the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership pushers beat their usual political drum claiming job creation on a massive scale. However, U.S. labor organizations have long said the consequences of those agreements have been devastating to the tune of hundreds of thousands of American jobs along with numerous manufacturing closures. They feel the partnership will be even worse, calling it "NAFTA on steroids," because it represents 40 percent of America's global trade.
Opponents also point out these trade agreements really have less to do with trade than with corporate controls and shields from various countries' policies and laws, be they human rights, environmental protections, financial regulations, labor conditions, food safety standards, etc. These agreements expose nations to being sued if national policies can be shown to somehow cause corporations to fail to profit, to operate as they wish, or even just frustrate their profit expectations. The examples of such cases can be wild, even preposterous. Philip Morris, for example, has sued Uruguay and Australia over those countries' anti-smoking initiatives. Imagine how environmental protections that have taken us generations to establish in this country will fare when they frustrate the profit-making abilities of international corporations. Should we just kiss environmental laws goodbye?
The fines to a country if it loses a judgment can run into billions, which many governments cannot afford, so they give in to corporate overlords. This is why opponents say joining such agreements puts independent governmental sovereignty at risk. That includes ours, by the way.
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton's answer to my concern over some of the terms in the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a typical what-to-tell-the-citizens response. He wrote, "The TPP has the potential to be a game-changing trade pact for American businesses. With the right protections in place, such a pact would facilitate increased trade among all parties, raising our standard of living and providing an increased market for Arkansas rice, aeronautics equipment, and cotton, among other products we currently export." We innocents may ask, "What could be the problem with this?"
Perhaps Sen. Cotton should have written the phrase, "With the right protections in place" and "businesses" in bold capitalized lettering because within those few words exists a world of very different beneficiaries. First and foremost, the question should be, "Whose protections?" In addition, those who have been critical of the agreement greatly fear the "fast-track" authority, which Congress may vote to give the president as early as next week, that allows secretive negotiations without public input or awareness. It also lasts for six years so one or two more presidents could use this beyond-the-reach-of-citizens technique to aid and abet geopolitical corporate wants and power.
Renee Parsons, in a Huffington Post article in 2013 titled, "With the Trans-Pacific Partnership's Fast Track Authority, Who Needs Congress?" pointed out the so-called protections generate, "a massive economic integration toward a fully corporatized global economy." Ellen Brown's article of April 27 on her Web of Debt blog is titled, "The TPP and the Death of the Republic," and reports that "On April 22, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the TPP ... that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers." She also points out that fast-tracking "means Congress will be prohibited from amending the trade deal."
What can we do about this? Read those articles and others online, search linkswww.peopledemandingaction.org and www.citizen.org for information, and contact our Arkansas senators and congressmen immediately with your opinions. This is urgent. Politicians turning secretive tricks of any kind on the people of this country should be found as guilty as those practicing that other oldest profession.
Commentary on
|
Re: TPP Flag Day
7-12-15 | 2:51 PM (5 hours ago)  | | ||
| ||||
I have been invited to make comments about TPP for a KUAF program that is being put together to discuss supporters and opponents. Having stepped away from my obsessive following of the subject for a couple of months, I felt I had better refresh and update my information in an effort to not make a fool of myself. After looking intently at this for about five years, it is rather surrealistic to think it has remained alive after Wikileaks and the tremendous educational efforts by Public Citizen. They cracked open the window of secrecy just enough to let us know about the many non-trade issues that are being designed to benefit corporate control that will exacerbate deterioration of the middle class. Now that FTA has greased the skids for passage of the multiple bills that are cued in the pipeline, it will be interesting to see how long it takes the public to realize they have been had... again. The truth is, it wouldn't surprise me if the public fails to follow the dots of how all this has occurred and come up with some simplistic reason as to why their lives are worse off without placing blame where it's due.
The situation about granting Malaysiafavored nation status as a trading partner after its slave trafficking and slaughter and high-seas pirating must require the issuance of large clothespins for negotiators' noses. The rotten stench should have them on their knees. But then we managed to overlook the stench in Columbia where NAFTA was concerned. I found it interesting that one of the others to be interviewed by KUAF is Boon Tan, Senior Director - Global Trade with the World Trade Center of Arkansas located in Rogers. http://arwtc.org/staff/boon-tan/ Tan was previously stationed in Malaysia as a trade representative so it would be interesting to hear his take on this current situation. Sadly, since the interviewer wants to keep her job, you can be sure it won't come up in his interview. Here is a link to another article on this story that does a bit more in describing the situation. What pain and suffering we are witnessing! http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/
It is hard to imagine that TPP and its ugly trade sisters will be stopped now that FTA has passed. Like the old German saying, "Too soon old, too late smart." I have tried for years to get interest going on this topic and never found a critical mass who saw it as being more important than what was already on their agenda.
Joyce
On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 11:46 AM, E Meredith Long <long9875@yahoo.com>wrote:
 | |||||||
So that U.S. President Barack Obama can end a roadblock and win the agreement of other nations for his proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, he has decided to remove ... | |||||||
Preview by Yahoo | |||||||
We can now more officially add the American flag to that category of insignia that might signify slavery. B
Senator Jeff Sessions Exposes TPP Content
This is the exposure that has been needed for years. It will be interesting to see if courage is contagious now that Senator Jeff Sessions has stepped forward to challenge the threat of prosecution for exposing TPP content that has been on Congressional members by the U. S Trade Office. Sunlight on legislation can be a strong disinfectant. Let it shine! Let it shine! [from Joyce H 5-20-15]
Senator Sessions
GRAYSON Letter: No on Fast Track on FTA. NO TPP//Reasons
5-10-15
| ) | | ||
| ||||
NIKE the Number 1 lobbying company for the TPP because it has made billions for NIKE at our expense.
My Open letter to Senators & Rep:
The TPP is not a sustainable solution for anyone concerned. From information leaked about the TPP, a better title would be Trans Pollution Partnership.
It is wrong to prioritize corporations profits over People and all of the Planet. Using corporate tribunals, a corporation can sue our state local or federal government for our taxpayer dollars if a corporations future profits are threatened. The corporations can take our money and invalidate our laws. Shall such sociopathic measures be repeated? History shows that NAFTA is an example of this. The TPP is considered to be NAFTA on Steroids expanding the powers of corporations with 29 chapters written and only 5 chapters are related to trade. The rest are related to governance. This extremist scheme would benefit only the 1% = the Corporate Fascist Shadow Government. With life support systems eradicated, what would the children do? This scheme would not only be the end of America with foreign corporation buy outs, but it would also be the end of the life support on planet Earth. I suppose that is the reason there is such an intricate underground system of cities here in America, especially under the NSA facilities. Below I include some examples of the TPP projected devastation wrought by the undermining of our national sovereignty and democracy.
A. the unchecked poisoning of our food supply via antibiotic resistant bacteria
B. the unchecked poisoning of our food supply via GMOs and synthetic life = biodevastation.
C. the unchecked poisoning of our water supply via Hydraulic Fractionation.
D. the unchecked poisoning of our land via CAFOs, GMOs, chemical pesticides, chemical herbicides
E. the unchecked poisoning of our air and water due to CAFOs, chemical pesticides, chemical herbicides
F. the unchecked poisoning of our water and land due to fossil fuel extraction plus carbon increase: tar sands & pipelines, off shore drilling
G. the unchecked poisoning of our water and air due to nuclear reactor meltdowns.
H. the unchecked poisoning of our economy by escalating the economic inequality through off-shoring of jobs and escalating trade deficit.
How do we know these dangers? By observation, clinical studies, & historical facts.
Wikileaks cables have revealed that Monsanto has operatives within our government as well as key US diplomats. Monsanto’s expansionist and health endangering agenda is carried out by targeted military style trade wars. Monsanto has a repetitive history of creating toxic poisons such as DDT, Agent Orange, rBGH & Aspartame & Round Up and GMOs culminates the list.
The studies of Dr. Don Huber, Howard Vlieger and others illustrates the toxicity of GMOs and Round Up. Actual farm studies were conducted by Howard Vlieger and have been published in journals.
There’s also a shift to non-GMO feed among livestock farmers. Iowa farmer and crop and livestock advisor Howard Vlieger says:
“We are seeing more and more livestock operations recognize the benefit in animal health of switching to non-GMO feed. In swine the PRRS [porcine respiratory reproductive syndrome] and PED [porcine epidemic diarrhea] is mostly gone once they have completed one or two breeding cycles on the non-GMO feed. One operation that I advised to switch to non-GMO feed had a 85% reduction in injectable antibiotic use along with improved performance.
“In poultry (layers) I received a report of bird mortality rates being cut in half and the egg production increasing 3-5% by switching to non-GMO feed. When an equipment problem forced them to feed GM for one batch of feed the egg production went down within 2 days of using the GM feed and production came back up within 3 days of switching back to non-GMO.”
“In poultry (layers) I received a report of bird mortality rates being cut in half and the egg production increasing 3-5% by switching to non-GMO feed. When an equipment problem forced them to feed GM for one batch of feed the egg production went down within 2 days of using the GM feed and production came back up within 3 days of switching back to non-GMO.”
Grass-fed meat has been shown to contain less fat, more beneficial fatty acids, and more vitamins and to be a good source of a variety of nutrients. According to a study published in the Journal of Animal Science in 2009, eating grass-fed beef provides many benefits to consumers: (3) S.K. Duckett et al, Journal of Animal Science, (published online) June 2009, “Effects of winter stocker growth rate and finishing system on: III. Tissue proximate, fatty acid, vitamin and cholesterol content.”
1. Lower in total fat
2. Higher in beta-carotene
3. Higher in vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol)
4. Higher in the B-vitamins thiamin and riboflavin
5. Higher in the minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium
6. Higher in total omega-3s
7. A healthier ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids (1.65 vs 4.84)
8. Higher in CLA (cis-9 trans-11), a potential cancer fighter
9. Higher in vaccenic acid (which can be transformed into CLA)
10. Lower in the saturated fats linked with heart disease
The prioritized agenda of the 1% makes no sense, only big $$$ and only for the 1%.
Oppose Fast Track because it undermines democratic process on the TPP or any Free Trade Agenda agreement. Oppose the TPP because of all the reasons above.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sue Skidmore
Springfield, MO 65804
Attachments:
Dr. Don Huber on record with Dr Mercola. Dr. Don Huber: GMOs and Glyphosate and Their Threat to Humanity by Food Integrity Now http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/06/dr-huber-gmo-foods.aspx
WARREN TO OBAMA
This TPP story is very good. It is quite alarming how this legislation is seriously anti democratic and secretive, and as this story indicates is farther to the corporate right wing than even Bush...it smells like a hostile corporate takeover more extreme than any previous corrupt free trade legislation..and Hillary is silent...in addition to her other positions, her silent consent forces me to oppose her completely from her presidential aspirations. unlike other democrats opposing TPP, she is not a leader. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/25/elizabeth-warren-tells-obama-put-or-shut-trade
TPP: Leaked text that confirms the worst:
| 1:19 PM (1 hour ago) | | ||
| ||||
Friends,
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is huge corporate power grab being negotiated in secret by the US and 11 other countries. It directly threatens both the climate and workers across the globe.
But it's an idea we can stop -- if we speak out and tell Congress to put people and planet before corporate profits. Click here to send a message to Congress to tell them to say no to the TPP.
An idea this bad is hard to keep under wraps, and key sections of the deal have leaked to the public via Wikileaks.What we have learned is just astonishing:
The TPP would allow multinational fossil fuel companies to sue governments that hurt their profits by keeping carbon pollution in the ground. This is an agreement basically being written by Big Oil, and it's designed to make pollution more profitable.
The more people find out about the TPP, the more they oppose it -- which is why we can stop this deal. Fast Track legislation that would give the TPP a path to approval faces a close vote in Congress.
Most members of Congress don't expect to hear from most of their constituents on an issue like a trade deal. Speaking out can make an apathetic politician sit up and get off the fence.
Can you send a message to your Representatives now, asking them to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Fast Track? Click here to send a message: act.350.org/sign/congress-tpp/
Labor groups, environmental organizations and so many more are fighting back together against the TPP, and the impact is beginning to show. The people behind the TPP want it to stay as secret as possible for good reason. The more we speak up, the less likely it is they will get away with it.
Let's push, Jason
350.org is building a global climate movement. Become a sustaining donor to keep this movement strong and growing.
Galesburg, Illinois, residents saw their jobs disappear after the passage of NAFTA. The TPP likely won't be any different.
In These Times (June 6, 2015) BY PETER COLE
Getting It Wrong on Trade: TPP Is Not Good for Workers
Published: 14 March 2015. CEPR, Beat the Press.
The big money is sweating big time since it seems large segments of the American public have caught wind of the Obama administration's plans for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. After several decades in which trade has been a major factor depressing the wages and living standards of the country's workers, the Obama administration is going back to the well to push for more.
The immediate goal is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which includes a number of countries in Asia and Latin America. While it excludes major countries like China and India, the explicit intention is to expand the pact so that these countries will eventually be included. This fact is important in assessing this deal.
For example, the Washington Post (which has a religious devotion to these sorts of trade deals) ran a column by three prominent economists, David Autor, David Dorn, and George Hanson (ADH), which tells readers the TPP is good for the country's workers. ADH is an interesting team to make this argument since they have written several papers showing that our patterns of trade have been an important force depressing the wages of a large segment of the U.S. workforce.
ADH start out by saying that manufacturing workers have little to lose in this deal because tariffs with the countries in the pact are already near zero, therefore we will not be opening ourselves to new competition if the few remaining barriers are eliminated. Here is where the possibility of expansion is important.
Many prominent economists, including many strongly pro-trade economists like Fred Bergsten, the former president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, have argued the TPP should include rules on currency manipulation. While this may not be a big issue with most of the countries in this round, it is certainly a big deal with China and other countries that could join. According to calculations by Bergsten and others, actions of foreign central banks to raise the value of the dollar have added several hundred billions of dollars to our trade deficit and cost us millions of manufacturing jobs.
If the TPP does not have rules on currency values it may be far more difficult to address the problem of over-valued currencies and reduce the country's trade deficit. This is hugely important in the context of an under-employed economy, or "secular stagnation" to use the term now popular among mainstream economists.
We have no easy mechanism for replacing the $500 billion in lost annual demand (@ 3.0 percent of GDP) due to the trade deficit. We could do it by running large budget deficits, but that is not politically viable. The other mechanism that has been used to fill this demand gaps is asset bubbles, as in stock and housing bubbles. That does not seem like a promising path going forward either. In other words, if we want to see a full employment economy we should be very concerned about the trade deficit and the TPP.
If ADH's assurance that workers need not worry about any downsides from the TPP are not convincing their claims for the upside are an even bigger failure. They make the correct point that the deal is mostly about imposing a corporate friendly regulatory structure on the other countries in the pact. They argue this would largely benefit U.S. corporations since they would get more money for their patents and copyrights and would be less concerned about foreign regulations damaging their profits.
Before dealing with the foreign aspects of this deal, it is important to note that the deal will also bind the U.S. Congress and every state and local government in the United States. Regardless of intentions, it is very likely that provisions will affect the ability of governments in the United States to get lower drug prices and to impose environmental and health and safety regulations. The assurances to the contrary have exactly zero value. Once the deal is written it is out of the hands of the negotiators, who do not know how it will be interpreted by the judges in the extra-judicial investor-state dispute settlement mechanism established by the TPP.
But the argument about the benefits to U.S. corporations is even more interesting. U.S. corporations like Apple, GE, and Merck have been telling us for decades in every way they can they are not in any meaningful sense "U.S." corporations. They are corporations. They are interested in making profits. If this means shifting jobs overseas to take advantage of low cost labor, they will do that in a second. The same applies to environmental regulations. And, when it comes to paying taxes, if they can find a legal or semi-legal way to have their profits appear in an Irish or Cayman Islands subsidiary, they will do it, end of story.
What part of getting kicked in the face do you not understand? We care about these companies if we own stock in them, otherwise there is no reason that we should prefer that Apple or GE make profits than Samsung or Toyota.
In fact, the main way that these companies hope to profit from the TPP will likely hurt U.S. workers. By getting more money for their drug patents and copyrights from foreigners, they will effectively be crowding out net exports of U.S. manufacturing goods. The increased patent fees and royalties will increase the demand for the dollar, raising its value, thereby making U.S. manufactured goods less competitive.
To put this in more practical terms, imagine that you are selling fruit and vegetables at an outdoor market. Suppose that the people at the next two stalls are clever hucksters, we'll call them Bill Gates and Pfizer. Because of their cleverness, they can sell worthless junk at very high prices to almost everyone who passes their stalls. Since most people pass their stalls before they get to yours, the odds are that you won't sell much fruit and vegetables. Most of your potential customers will have given most of their money away to Bill Gates and Pfizer before they got to your stall. For this reason, it is not just a matter of indifference to U.S. workers that the TPP will suck more money away from foreigners in the form of higher patent fees and royalties, it is actually harmful.
In short, the TPP is likely a really bad deal for American workers. I say "likely", because I haven't seen it yet.
But remember, Microsoft and Pfizer are at the negotiating table, you are not.
A version of the preceding article was published in Extra!, with author identified.
www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/the-incredible...The Huffington Post
May 18, 2015 - For the elites, trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership(TPP) are a ... Follow Dean Baker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DeanBaker13 ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/rich-peoples-r...The Huffington Post
Jun 16, 2015 - There are many reasons not to like the TPP, but here are my three favorites. ... Follow Dean Baker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DeanBaker13 ...
www.cepr.net/.../getting-it-wro...Center for Economic and Policy Research
Mar 14, 2015 - The immediate goal is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which includes a number of countries in Asia and Latin America. While it excludes ...
You visited this page on 6/17/15.
Corporate Media Report TPP: The Washington Post
Dean Baker, “To Washington Post, Downsides of TPP Are Someone Else’s Problem.” Extra! (June 2015).
Maiko Takahashi and David Tweed. “Car, rice imports impasse stalls Japan, US trade deal.” Bloomberg News, South Africa News, April 26, 2015. [I read a version of this report in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 22, 2015, 1D, “U.S., Japan Fail to Hit Trade Deal.” Both titles are misleading, for the report is mainly about TPP, not the trade deal with Japan. Pentagon Secretary Carter declared the great importance of TPP to the “rebalance” of Asia, and Congress was moving toward “trade promotion authority,” a step toward “fast track,” but ratification of TPP might not occur in 2015. Meanwhile “China and the other founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank [including many US allies] plan to sign the articles governing its management by the end of June.” -Dick]
EPA US Trade Representative Michael Froman says differences on trade matters between Japan and Washington have substantially narrowed. Photo: EPA Maiko Takahashi and David Tweed Tokyo
US and Japanese officials failed to reach agreement in marathon bilateral trade talks in Tokyo, a setback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s hopes of arriving for a summit in Washington next week with a pact in hand.
US Trade Representative Michael Froman left Tokyo after negotiations concluded around 4am yesterday, with differences remaining over vehicle and rice imports. Froman had travelled to Japan on Sunday for two days of talks with Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari to help pave the way for a broader Asia- Pacific agreement involving 10 other nations.
Differences on trade matters have substantially narrowed, Froman said before leaving the Japanese capital. The two countries have reached stage nine out of 10 in the discussions, Abe said in a television interview.
They tried to spin it in a positive way, but what seems to be pretty clear is that there is no breakthrough, said James Brown, an assistant professor for international affairs at Temple University in Tokyo.
On a foreign policy level, this is a major disappointment ahead of Abe s trip to the US that begins on Sunday.
The slow progress by Japan and the US in advancing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact in order to remain a centre of economic gravity in Asia comes as China enhances its own clout by luring more than 50 countries to join a new China-led regional infrastructure bank (AIIB). Japan and the US have been trying to overcome differences since Japan first said it would seek to join the TPP in 2013.
Speaking after the talks ended, Amari told reporters that he would meet again with Froman if needed before a meeting of all 12 nations involved with the TPP. He didn t indicate when such a meeting could be held.
Vital pillar
US officials have taken every opportunity in recent weeks to underscore that TPP is a vital pillar of its rebalance to Asia, and the US and Japan both raised concerns over transparency and governance in shunning the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter strayed from military issues in a Tokyo appearance to talk about the importance of TPP in a joint press conference with Japanese Defence Minister General Nakatani on April 8. Two days earlier, Carter told an audience in Arizona that the deal was as important to me as another aircraft carrier.
The TPP would link economies across the Pacific, making up roughly 40 percent of the world s gross domestic product. The other participants are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
The US Senate Committee on Finance introduced a bipartisan bill last week in Washington that could have sped passage of TPP-related trade legislation in Congress. The legislation would let the White House send Congress trade pacts for votes without amendment, known as trade promotion authority. It also would give Congress the right to revoke the so-called fast-track process if enough lawmakers find the president ignored negotiating goals.
Fortunately, the US Congress does seem to be working on getting that trade promotion authority, and if that goes through then this will be a lot easier to do, said Robert Feldman, chief economist at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities in Tokyo. There is always a great deal of brinkmanship involved in these negotiations, so the fact that things are reported to have gotten a little bumpy at a very, very late stage doesn t surprise me a bit.
Reluctant
The setback if it endures would make it less likely that Japan and the US will get a deal this year. With the US presidential campaign beginning to heat up, Congress may prove more reluctant to approve any trade detail next year before the vote.
No-one doubts that the gaps between the US and Japanese positions on market access issues have narrowed, Richard Katz, publisher of the US-based Oriental Economist Report, wrote after the talks ended. But it remains in serious question whether they will narrow enough to allow the two countries to come to an agreement in time so that TPP can be ratified in 2015 which means signing TPP by around the end of June.
While TPP talks languish, China and the other members of the AIIB plan to sign the articles governing its management by the end of June. Bloomberg
US and Japanese officials failed to reach agreement in marathon bilateral trade talks in Tokyo, a setback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s hopes of arriving for a summit in Washington next week with a pact in hand.
US Trade Representative Michael Froman left Tokyo after negotiations concluded around 4am yesterday, with differences remaining over vehicle and rice imports. Froman had travelled to Japan on Sunday for two days of talks with Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari to help pave the way for a broader Asia- Pacific agreement involving 10 other nations.
Differences on trade matters have substantially narrowed, Froman said before leaving the Japanese capital. The two countries have reached stage nine out of 10 in the discussions, Abe said in a television interview.
They tried to spin it in a positive way, but what seems to be pretty clear is that there is no breakthrough, said James Brown, an assistant professor for international affairs at Temple University in Tokyo.
On a foreign policy level, this is a major disappointment ahead of Abe s trip to the US that begins on Sunday.
The slow progress by Japan and the US in advancing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact in order to remain a centre of economic gravity in Asia comes as China enhances its own clout by luring more than 50 countries to join a new China-led regional infrastructure bank (AIIB). Japan and the US have been trying to overcome differences since Japan first said it would seek to join the TPP in 2013.
Speaking after the talks ended, Amari told reporters that he would meet again with Froman if needed before a meeting of all 12 nations involved with the TPP. He didn t indicate when such a meeting could be held.
Vital pillar
US officials have taken every opportunity in recent weeks to underscore that TPP is a vital pillar of its rebalance to Asia, and the US and Japan both raised concerns over transparency and governance in shunning the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter strayed from military issues in a Tokyo appearance to talk about the importance of TPP in a joint press conference with Japanese Defence Minister General Nakatani on April 8. Two days earlier, Carter told an audience in Arizona that the deal was as important to me as another aircraft carrier.
The TPP would link economies across the Pacific, making up roughly 40 percent of the world s gross domestic product. The other participants are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
The US Senate Committee on Finance introduced a bipartisan bill last week in Washington that could have sped passage of TPP-related trade legislation in Congress. The legislation would let the White House send Congress trade pacts for votes without amendment, known as trade promotion authority. It also would give Congress the right to revoke the so-called fast-track process if enough lawmakers find the president ignored negotiating goals.
Fortunately, the US Congress does seem to be working on getting that trade promotion authority, and if that goes through then this will be a lot easier to do, said Robert Feldman, chief economist at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities in Tokyo. There is always a great deal of brinkmanship involved in these negotiations, so the fact that things are reported to have gotten a little bumpy at a very, very late stage doesn t surprise me a bit.
Reluctant
The setback if it endures would make it less likely that Japan and the US will get a deal this year. With the US presidential campaign beginning to heat up, Congress may prove more reluctant to approve any trade detail next year before the vote.
No-one doubts that the gaps between the US and Japanese positions on market access issues have narrowed, Richard Katz, publisher of the US-based Oriental Economist Report, wrote after the talks ended. But it remains in serious question whether they will narrow enough to allow the two countries to come to an agreement in time so that TPP can be ratified in 2015 which means signing TPP by around the end of June.
While TPP talks languish, China and the other members of the AIIB plan to sign the articles governing its management by the end of June. Bloomberg
None of the senators or representatives publishes his e-mail address, but each can be contacted by filling in forms offered through his website.
Senator John Boozman: (202)224-4843
Website Email: http://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
Senator Tom Cotton: (202)224-2353,
Website Email: http://www.cotton.senate.gov/content/contact-tom
Rep. Rick Crawford, 1st District: (202)225-4076
Website Email: http://crawford.house.gov/contact/
Rep. French Hill, 2nd District: (202)225-2506
Website Email: https://hill.house.gov/contact/email
Rep. Steve Womack, 3rd District: (202)225-4301
Website Email: http://womack.house.gov/contact/
Rep. Bruce Westerman, 4th District: (202) 225-3772
President Barack Obama: Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Contents US Westward Imperialism, Pacific/E. Asia Newsletter #16, April 12, 2015
This Number Is Devoted to Stopping Trans-Pacific Partners TPP
Senator Sanders
Sue Skidmore and Robert Reich, TPP a Leap in Corporate/1% Power
Sierra Club, Stop TPP Fast Track
Progressive Secretary, Tell Congress NO on Fast Track
AFL-CIO, Write Your Own Letter or Column
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning Economist Urges Caution
Sue Skidmore, Excellent Over-view
Google Search, TPP 2015, April 12, 2015
END US WESTWARD IMPERIALISM, PACIFIC, E. ASIA NEWSLETTER #17