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

Friday, October 10, 2014

What’s Wrong With The Trans Atlantic Trade And Investment Partnership?

Click here to access article and 4:08m video posted by Don Quijones of Raging Bull-Shit.
Most Europeans and Americans are still blissfully unaware of even the existence of the Transalantic Trade And Investment Partnership (TTIP), nevermind how it could impact their own existence. Here’s a four-minute, eight-second summation of many (but far from all) of the things that are wrong with the soon-to-be-signed treaty (told from a largely European perspective).
To have even the slightest chance of stopping TTIP from melding together the U.S. and European economies into one giant forced-trade zone where the giants of corporate America and Europe are granted the right to do whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want — and always at our expense — people on both sides of the Northern Atlantic must first wise up to its existence.
What ruling class fascists were intent on doing in the 20th century (eliminating annoying capitalist forms of "rule of law" and "representative" government) using police state methods, ruling capitalist classes of this century have added another strategy to their weapons arsenal--transnational agreements such as NAFTA, TTIP, etc. It will have the same ultimate effect: corporations über alles. Because of the secrecy imposed on these negotiations, ruling class media are not informing us ordinary people about what is happening. Without media of our own, we are easy victims: passive, compliant, unaware, and distracted sheeple who will only wake up as they are led into the slaughterhouse of global corporate rule. 

Of course, our masters are also maintaining the old-fashioned 20th century method of surveillance over what we say, write, or do, but they now have benefit of the sophisticated technologies of the 21st century.