Elizabeth Warren on TTP and Multi-National Corporations "Fast Track" by Norman Markowitz

The more a listen to your courageous statements, the more I am convinced that Senator Elizabeth Warren is by far the best candidate of either gender to be t he next President of the United States, the only one who has a serious chance of doing wihat we all hoped that Barack Obama would do, stand up to the transnational corporations, brokerage houses, and banks instead of acting as a buffer between them and the masses of working people.  Her statement below on TPP, which both the Obama administration and the Republicans, whatever their differences, are supporting is an example of her at her best and also why she offers a possible way out of the rut that liberals, progressives, and those segments of the left engaged in electoral politics  have long found themselves

Norman Markowitz


Senator Elizabeth Warren. (photo: People Magazine)


The TPP: What's Hidden in the Fine Print By Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Warren's Blog

17 March 15

 

he United States is in the final stages of secret, closed-door negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade agreement with 11 other countries.

Who will benefit from it? One provision hidden in the fine print – “Investor-State Dispute Settlement” – may sound harmless, but don’t let that fool you: ISDS could let foreign companies challenge US laws without ever stepping in an American court.

That would undermine US sovereignty and tilt the playing field even further in favor of multinational corporations.

Sign my petition and spread the word: ISDS is a bad deal for America.

Here’s how ISDS would work: Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge that regulation in a US court.

But with ISDS, the company could skip the US courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the multinational company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in US courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions – and even billions – of dollars in damages.

If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldn’t employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next. Really.

And if the tilt toward giant corporations wasn’t clear enough, consider who would get to use this special court: only international investors, which are, by and large, giant corporations. So if a Vietnamese company with US operations wanted to challenge our refusal to import a dangerous chemical, it could use ISDS. But if an American labor union or human rights group believed Vietnam was allowing Vietnamese companies to pay slave wages in violation of trade commitments, the American labor group would have to make its case in the Vietnamese courts – and if an environmental group thought the Vietnamese company was dumping waste in their rivers in violation of the new trade agreement, they would have to go to a Vietnamese court as well. In other words, the great deal for corporations is only for corporations – everyone else is left out.

Giving foreign corporations special rights to challenge our laws outside of our legal system would be a bad deal for America. Sign my petition to say no to ISDS.

Opposing ISDS isn’t a partisan issue – even your Tea Party relatives should be worried about this dangerous provision:

  • Conservatives who believe in US sovereignty should be outraged that ISDS would shift power from American courts, whose authority is derived from our Constitution, to unaccountable international tribunals.

  • Libertarians should be offended that ISDS effectively would offer a free taxpayer subsidy to countries with weak legal systems.

  • And progressives should oppose ISDS because it would allow big multinational corporations to weaken labor and environmental rules.

If a final TPP agreement includes Investor-State Dispute Settlement, the only winners will be multinational corporations. Join me in saying No to ISDS.

 

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  • I know that the only stupid question is the one not asked. Who's idea was this? How did it come about? How close are we to this being law? And if we say no?

    Posted by Denise Massey, 09/21/2015 6:42pm (9 years ago)

  • SImply outraged!

    Posted by Clay saunders, 04/24/2015 1:02pm (9 years ago)

  • The working class never has been, and never will be engaged in struggle by identifying and associating itself with names being thrown around like"Capitalist system", "Capitalist exploitation", or arguing over them. These are those captivated with phrase mongering; not the fighting, living, breathing and eventually victorious working people.
    It is the REAL struggle over real issues: rules, standards, procedures and policies which determine the actual conditions of work that will engage the workers and give them an opportunity to learn, through struggle, how to wrest gains from the monopoly capitalists and eventually the gain of wresting capital itself from this class.
    Are what our friend Intisarul Islam dubs "Bourgeois Progressive warriors" the workers and officials who fight with works, politics, pen, policy and even fists, self-defeating strategists? Really?
    If so, we are all, with the policy makers who from time to time support us (oftentimes because we elected them and they know it), following "..self-defeating strategy"-using and following this logic, all democracy, and especially working class democracy under capitalist regimes must foster defeatism.
    But when one insist on curtailing working class democracy, while in development, one wonder who the self-defeatists really are.

    Posted by E.E.W. Clay, 04/07/2015 9:44am (9 years ago)

  • People give Warren WAY too much credit.

    The thing with Liberals and their reforms is that in a Capitalist system where serving capital is a prerequisite for political success, no matter how outspoken a candidate is before office and before elections, once elections and the office come along, they inevitably gravitate towards the Capitalist class. When Warren needs a few billion dollars to spend for her campaign, who's she going to go to? Us? No! To the Capitalists! In a Capitalist system, where the means of production are owned by the Capitalists, if she wants to deliver "economic growth," who will she have to serve? The Capitalist class which controls hiring and firing and thus everybody's jobs and with it their livelihoods - all of which, in Capitalism, are tied to Capitalist profit and its corresponding class exploitation. As long as we operate within a Capitalist framework, candidates will be nothing more than stooges of Capital, touting their "Progressive" credentials when they need votes, but sleeping with the Capitalists right after they get their votes. As the problem is Capitalism itself, Warren is no solution to our problems, and there is no reason to think that Warren will be any better than any of the other Bourgeois "Progressive warriors." Voting for Warren (or any other Liberal) is a self-defeating strategy.

    Posted by Intisarul Islam, 03/31/2015 6:32pm (9 years ago)

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