How are the continuing attempts to delegitmize Bernie's campaign NOT "refighting the primaries"?

[Ken Burch]

91. Thanks for your response...I appreciate your thoughtfulness.but, in negotiating TPP...

Last edited Wed Dec 21, 2016, 02:47 PM - Edit history (1)

he could, at the very least, have insisted that corporations NOT be able to force countries to cut social services, reduce educational funding, and repeal strong labor, environmental and consumer protection laws by calling them "tariffs" or "subsidies".

(A tariff should be nothing other than a fee charged for the importation of goods, and a subsidy should be nothing but direct state cash payments to companies. Trade deals should never be used to let corporations force sovereign states to impose austerity, hardship, and greater social and economic inequality.)

Also, if there had to be "tribunals" in which corporations can challenge laws passed by sovereign states, they should include representatives of labor, environmental organizations, racial/ethic/religious/sexual/gender minorities, indigenous communities and the poor...otherwise, the tribunals will automatically biased in favor of corporate interests and the will of the people will more often than not be thwarted.

(The negotiating teams for each nation involved should also include members of those groups).

And once negotiated, the terms of the agreement should have been made public. There's no excuse for trying to get something of that magnitude passed without the public knowing for sure what was in it.

Making those changes in approach would not have conflicted with any of the president's objectives. It should be possible to get agreement between a variety of nations on a trade pact without making the pact a formula for greater inequality and less sovereignty.