
Congress Is Poised to Introduce a Bill to Fast Track TPP So It's Time to Act Now - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/its-time-act-now-congress-poised-introduce-bill-fast-track-tpp-next-week
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glesica
Hilarious how the GOP spends half its time screaming wildly about Obama trying
to become a dictator and the other half of its time signing over
constitutional powers to him. To say nothing of the Democrats who spent eight
years under Bush claiming executive authority had run amok and now can't pass
the buck fast enough.

This is why I don't vote, it isn't a struggle between Left and Right or
Democrat and Republican, it's basically the people with money against everyone
else. And my side (the people without money) lose no matter who gets elected
in most cases.

~~~
fredleblanc
Not to be that guy, but there are generally other candidates than just the
main two. Most seem to ignore third-party candidates because they'll never
win, but that quickly becomes a vicious circle: they probably won't win so
people don't vote for them, it looks like they have little support so people
won't bother, they continue to earn 1-3% of votes.

That's not to say third party people are the greatest either, personally, a
candidate needs to earn my vote, not just be the lesser of evils. What I'm
saying is that if a non-main candidate interests you, I think it's worth your
time to vote. The same way it's nice to tell someone on the Internet that you
appreciate them.

There are a lot of hardworking people trying to make the world better, they
just don't have the funding, pull, or connections to make it happen. But as
we've been seeing with recent protests: if there are enough people fed up with
the current system, and people back another option, the (US) government _does_
seem to still listen to its people.

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dingdingdang
Look up the history of the Greens in Germany they went from insignificant nth
contender in the 1980s to ruling party - simply by slowly gathered the votes
of discontent from people fed up with the two main parties. Not voting is not
a strategy; should be mandatory in my opinion.

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fredleblanc
I agree that too many in the country don't exercise their right to vote, but I
wouldn't take away their right to abstain. But, I mean, that could be solved
by having an `abstain` option on the ballot itself.

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techdragon
Here in Australia it's mandatory to "vote" or you get a crappy little fine,
few hundred, who cares. But here's the clever bit, voting just consists of
showing up and giving your name so they can cross you off the list. You can
take the ballot, and just shove it in the box blank. Perfectly legal "abstain"
vote in a country where you have to vote.

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g-clef
All of the people the EFF says to tweet to are Democrats...in a Republican-
controlled house. This seems like an ineffectual strategy.

They should be trying to sway influential Republicans in the House, to make it
clear that opposition to the TPP is bi-partisan. I think a number of
Republicans would dislike some of the aspects of the TPP that center on issues
of national sovereignty, so it's not like this has to be an especially
partisan issue.

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Shivetya
likely because they //Democrats// have shown they will support the White House
direction regardless of merit or political cost. So the way to sway the White
House is convince Congressional Democrats that it is too politically costly.
doesn't mean that the Administration won't try an executive order to
circumvent if they want

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coldcode
Why would a Republican controlled house vote to hand the President a freebee?
Could it be the two parties are much the same when it comes to screwing the
American people?

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Gusfoo_2
> Could it be the two parties are much the same when it comes to screwing the
> American people?

Perhaps (shock!) the TPP is actually a good idea and will be beneficial to the
people of the USA

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logn
Which is why they've been so proud to share the details with the people of the
USA, right? Foreign companies will be able to sue the USA if any of TPP
provisions are violated (allegedly... it's a secret agreement), so it would be
nice to actually debate it first. Legislators have been excluded from TPP
negotiations as well.

Additionally, fast tracking bypasses Constitutional procedures to ratify
treaties.

The supporters of TPP are the legislators who serve big business, generally.
Those opposed are the populists. If by good for the American people, you mean
American corporations and American investors, then you're right that it's good
for them.

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bwheel
[https://ustr.gov/tpp/outlines-of-TPP](https://ustr.gov/tpp/outlines-of-TPP)

The secrecy of the TPP in it's initial stages and it's fast-tracking in
Congress is most definitely suspicious, but I fail to see anything that looks
harmful to the American people. If anything, it at least seems to be
addressing abusive labor practices abroad, which in turn could make the U.S.
more competitive in the production of goods. Am I missing something?

It would be nice to see this discussed more openly in Congress, but I'm
curious if this is due to the pressure of China's rival regional agreement,
FTAAP.

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undersuit
> could make the U.S. more competitive in the production of goods

I think the majority of the goods in this context will be digital goods. The
tribunal system is a sure way for a multinational company to bend a country
over for a good spanking over not enforcing draconian DRM laws.

