No to NAFTA on Steroids
Coalition to STOP TPP Announces Week of Protest
and an International Community-Based Conference
From June 30 to July 8, the secret, super-treaty negotiations known as the 13th Round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Negotiations are being held here in San Diego at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel. The Coalition to STOP TPP hereby announces a week with rallies, a march, various other protests, and a week-long international community-based People’s Conference: A Better World Is Possible!
The 11 nations involved in the talks are the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Canada. Japan has indicated a desire to join. The economic power of this group is more than 40% larger than the 27-nation European Union. The claimed purpose of TPP is to promote development and create jobs. But their reality is different. Though the contents of these negotiations are secret, what is not a secret is that the impacts of the TPP on these Pacific Rim nations, on peasants, on farmers, on workers, on their natural resources, on the environment, will be devastating. Some people describe the TPP as “NAFTA on Steroids.”
The TPP will:
- Offshore good-paying jobs to low-wage nations and undercut working conditions globally
- Create new tools for attacking environmental and consumer safety standards
- Expand the deregulation of banks, hedge funds and insurance companies
- Further concentrate control of global food supplies, displacing family farmers and peasants and subjecting consumers to wild price fluctuations and un-labeled genetically-modified food
- Undermine public health policies that reduce tobacco consumption and increase access to medicine
- Give multinational corporations and private investors the right to sue nations in private tribunals. These tribunals have the power to overturn environmental, labor, or any other laws that limit profit, and award the corporations taxpayer-funded damages.
- Encourage privatization of lands and natural resources in areas where indigenous people live
During the week of July 2-7, the Coalition to STOP TPP will hold the following events:
• July 2, Monday, 12 pm – Support the Fair Trade Not Free Trade Rally sponsored by the San Diego and Imperial County Labor Council, in the park adjacent to the Hilton Bayfront Hotel
• July 7, Saturday, 11 am – March with Pots and Pans Against TPP! March leaves Civic Center at 11 am
• July 2, 3, 5, 6 & 7 – Conduct a People’s Conference: A Better World Is Possible! Speakers/locations at http://www.stoptpp.org/
We are protesting because the TPP must be stopped. We are holding our international conference in different venues in various San Diego communities so that we can share our experience and understanding of such disasters as NAFTA. But also we want to learn from each other about how we can build a better world – a world which is diametrically opposed to the practice of the multinational corporations and investor banks which are negotiating in secret to restructure the economies of the Pacific Rim nations to suit their profit-hungry goals. We will discuss in the conference, based on our varied, diverse and multicultural experiences how to build a better world based on: sustainable, networked, local economies; on full democratic participation: on cooperative and supportive human relations.
The Coalition to STOP TPP and its endorsers include: Global Trade Watch – Public Citizen Occupy San Diego, Women Occupy San Diego, Occupy City Heights, OccupYrCorner, OSD Labor Solidarity Committee, San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice, International Socialist Organization – San Diego, Canvass for a Cause, In Motion Magazine, Occupy Santa Rosa, Bayan USA, International League of Peoples’ Struggle; Green Party of San Diego; Colectivo Zapatista; People for Social Sustainability.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Of the several protests against this free trade
treaty, none of them are directed at the people who are said to be responsible for
it: Our U.S. Senators.
I have proposed that people, like me, of the reformist bent stage several
constituent visits at our senators’ field offices at the corner of 7th Ave and B St. downtown .
My plan is to create a work slowdown.
If you’re in, send me a message.
Buy American is as reactionary as american pie. Them against us, the pronoun disease in full pandemic glory. This is where the liberals, progressives and no shortage of socialists (social democrats) line up with their government who pretends it speaks for their america…thing is, it doesn’t and they don’t. Even after all the afl-cio advice ie tell our negotiators etc. etc., our negotiators? no, double no, we have no place at the 1% dinner table where they cut the pie/cake. They are not “our” negotiators.
All U.S. so-called trade negotiations are to affirm trade barriers and restrictions. Competition for the wealth wage slaves create, it’s never about cooperation. Gunboat diplomacy in the wings awaiting orders.
It was the same with NAFTA…..fair trade?….fair for whom? who decides what’s fair?
End all barriers and trade restrictions ie imperialist profit margins..that would be fair and much closer to an equal barter.
All this talk about american jobs is a hoax. We exist in the Americas. What suits the Citizens of Our Americas, beginning with our indigenous sisters and brothers (sovreign nations), is our goal, not the purse stings of GM or Cargill. or J&J, or Microsoft and all the rest. Our american youth, to their credit are beginning to reject the media and government lies to side with Amazon tribes, whose names they can barely pronounce. That’s American progress. Secular science trumps the 700 club.
Their (our?) olympics will be staring soon…..usa, usa, usa we’re # 1 , we’re #1…against the world. Gold medals, silver medals, bronze medals…..any Palestinians competing? guess not. Hopefully the British youth will have their say, following the example of Quebec.
This coming weeks TPP protests are a valuable opportunity to EXPOSE this whole process as the rigged system it is. It can’t be fixed.
Q for the OBRag, where do the mayoral candidates stand on this?