We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Will the Pacific trade deal protect workers?

Click here to access article from Al Jazeera.

Although the article begins with an inane question--"We ask if the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations have rendered democratic decision-making irrelevant."--it actually is fairly well balanced for a source owned mostly by the medieval monarch of Qatar and reliable US ally.

This ongoing, largely secret effort by global elites to extend free agreements will continue the downward trend in living standards of working people throughout the world and will increase the widening gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots". Such so-called "free trade" agreements force working people across the globe to compete over wages and working conditions which means a race to the bottom.  They also further alienate ordinary people by weakening what little influence they have over the corporate controlled, representative governments currently in place across the globe. 

This trend, of course, is the logical endgame of capitalism where the existing feeble versions of "democratic" government will be replaced by corporate imposed global treaties enforced by capitalist appointed judicial bodies, police, and armies. This trend will only accentuate the disintegration of societies, increase poverty, wars, and the destruction of our planet.