By THE TRUTH HOUND
In a climate of media-inspired fear and uncertainty in the wake of the reported shootings in Dallas and elsewhere—we need to stay focused on what Congress is doing regarding fraudulent free trade. Nationhood itself is at stake. [See radio report in link-icon above, which first appeared on KSDZ FM Radio, “The Twister,” run by Jim Lambley out of Gordon, Nebraska, covering a large area in Nebraska’s panhandle and parts of South Dakota.]
The Trans Pacific Partnership looms ever-larger and we need to work extra-hard now—not closer to November—to prevent a vote before, or just after, the November elections on that deceptive, massive trade and investment pact. Whatever happens with the TPP must be delayed until a new president and Congress are seated in January 2017.
It cannot be overstressed that all members of Congress lately have been subjected to heavy corporate lobbying, in a full-court press to get them to vote for the TPP during the lame-duck session.
The lame duck session, of course, is that notoriously risky gap of time right after a new president has been selected but not seated. This year, that gap gives pro-TPP President Barack Obama a nothing-to-lose mentality. Given that mindset, he’ll press harder than ever for TPP’s final passage—via an already required up-or-down vote with no amendments allowed.
Despite the media’s frenzied fixation on street violence and the alleged urgency for more civilian gun controls, the TPP situation is more urgent than it appears, especially since the Republican Party, in spelling out its national platform in the run-up to the GOP national convention in Cleveland, has again succumbed to corporatism.
The media took a brief break from its nonstop anti-Second Amendment crusade and gave the TPP honorable mention—but in a manner that suggests the TPP’s passage is inevitable.
The pro-TPP Washington Post reported, “The Republican Party was set to approve new, critical language about trade agreements in its platform, including opposition to a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership for the rest of President Obama’s term. But at the party’s platform meeting in Cleveland on Monday (July 11] that language was struck.”
The Washington journal Politico noted: “The platform initially urged the Republican-led Congress to reject efforts to ‘rush’ passage of the TPP, particularly during a lame-duck session of Congress, but now simply suggests that ‘significant’ trade decisions shouldn’t be rushed.”
Meanwhile, the pro-middle class organization Economy in Crisis complained that the Democratic National Convention’s full Platform Committee voted down amendments to the party’s platform to explicitly oppose the TPP trade deal.
Clearly, the press, the parties and their plutocratic handlers are trying to seal the job-killing, sovereignty-depleting TPP deal behind a media smokescreen—which serves to stoke the flames of racial tension. This media propaganda also prattles endlessly about the “ISIS” and general “terror” threat on the one hand, and the supposed need for civilian disarmament on the other.
Thus, the powers-that-be want to finalize the TPP during a time of year when House and Senate members who weren’t reelected need not fear serious repercussions if they vote for finalizing the TPP—especially if they follow a common pattern and plan to work in higher-paying positions in the corporate world upon leaving Congress.