WTO To Close Landmark Trade Deal

India and the U.S. resolved their differences over India’s food subsidy program, paving the way for a landmark global trade deal at the WTO.

WTO To Close Landmark Trade Deal

The hold up here was that Bali wanted to retain the right to stockpile grain as a measure against crop failure and famine - absolutely verboten under "Free Trade" deals. Usedtabe every nation stockpiled grain as a buffer against crop failures - the USA, Canada, everyone - but our "Free Trade" deals stopped the practice, and put the power to feed (and starve) nations into corporate hands.

The main hurdle to emerge in Bali is India's insistence that it be allowed to stockpile and subsidise grain for its millions of hungry poor.

…The United States and others say India's policy violates WTO rules on subsidies and fear the grain could enter markets, skewing world prices.

"Free Trade" deals establish the terms of the New World Order under international law. This deal is global. If you want to know what your new Constitutional Rights are, as a human not a corporate-person, read the WTO's new global trade deal. International trade deals override national laws - and free trade covers a lot of new ground. Usedtabe trade was about goods and products, but now everything is included - information, ideas, anything that by any stretch of the imagination might turn a profit. Or interfere with profits.

If you're curious about how our corporate masters enforce their will - check out these reports. And remember - activities against "non-profits" involve actions against individuals. No one is saying complainers need to be affiliated - just vocal.

Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage

…The American Civil Liberties Union is concerned about the special advantages granted to corporations under InfraGard. According to the ACLU’s Jay Stanley,

“‘The FBI should not be creating a privileged class of Americans who get special treatment....There’s no ‘business class’ in law enforcement. If there's information the FBI can share with 22,000 corporate bigwigs, why don't they just share it with the public? That's who their real ‘special relationship’ is supposed to be with. Secrecy is not a party favor to be given out to friends....This bears a disturbing resemblance to the FBI’s handing out ‘goodies’ to corporations in return for folding them into its domestic surveillance machinery.’”159

12 Corporate Espionage Tactics Used Against Leading Progressive Groups, Activists and Whistleblowers

Posing as volunteers. Stealing documents. Dumpster diving. Planting electronic bugs. Hacking computers. Tapping phones and voicemail. Planting false information. Trailing family members. Threatening reporters. Hiring cops, CIA officers and combat veterans to do all these dirty deeds—and counting on little pushback from law enforcement, mainstream media or Congress.

...author Gary Ruskin says most of the information was obtained “by accident.” It wasn’t freely given. It was the result of lawsuits, a handful of whisteblowers, mistakes by those hired to do the corporate espionage, boasts in trade press and other somewhat random sources.

But even so, there is a dark playbook that comes into view. Nonprofits are scrutinzed for vulnerabilities. Computers are hacked. Documents are copied or stolen. Phone calls and voice mail are secretly recorded. Personal dossiers are compiled. Disinformation is created and spread. Websites are targeted and taken down. Blackmail is attempted. Just as bad, Ruskin says, the Justice Department and Congress look the other way.

“The entire subject is veiled in secrecy,” his report says. “In recent years, there have been few serious journalistic efforts—and no serious government efforts—to come to terms with the reality of corporate spying against nonprofits.”

While the push for globalization is disconcerting and 'we' need to stay ever vigilant, the following assertion is simply not true:

"...International trade deals override national laws..." (not in the USA)

Reid vs. Covert - The Constitution SUPERSEDES international treaties (trade deals ARE treaties)

reply to post by Habit4ming


Do you have a link? ...The Constitutional effects are sneaky and have to do with "harmonization." Also, when global corporations enjoy the rights of "personhood," individual humans don't stand a snowball's chance in Hades of surviving any legal conflict. A few quick picks:

What is Harmonization?

Harmonization is the name given to the effort by industry to replace the variety of product standards and other regulatory policies adopted by nations in favor of uniform global standards. The harmonization effort gained a significant boost with the approval of several new international agreements, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which established the World Trade Organization (WTO). These pacts require or encourage national governments to harmonize standards or accept different, foreign standards as "equivalent" on issues as diverse as auto, food and worker safety, pharmaceutical testing standards and informational labeling of products. These trade agreements have also established an ever-increasing number of committees and working groups to implement the harmonization mandate. The WTO alone established over 50. Unfortunately, most of these working groups are industry dominated, do not provide an opportunity for input by interested individuals or potentially-affected communities, and generally conduct their operations behind closed doors. Yet, under current trade rules, these standard- setting processes can directly affect our national, state and local policies.

Fast Track Trade Authority: An Undemocratic Route to Damaging “Trade” Agreements

Fast Track was an extreme and rarely-used procedure that empowered executive branch negotiators, advised by large corporations, to bypass Congress and use “trade” agreements to rewrite policies, with sweeping impacts on our daily lives – from promoting job offshoring to undermining the safety of our food. As a candidate, President Obama said he would replace this anti-democratic process. But now he is asking Congress to grant him Fast Track’s extraordinary authority with the goal of railroading into effect two damaging agreements facing growing public opposition: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress is supposed to write the laws and set trade policy. If Americans do not like the results, they change the Congress and the policies. And so it was for 200 years. But since the mid-1970s, Democratic and GOP presidents alike have tried to seize those congressional powers through Fast Track. Hatched by Richard Nixon and only used 16 times since, Fast Track ripped up vital checks and balances. It allowed presidents to “diplomatically legislate” a vast array of policies having nothing to do with trade to which all of our domestic laws must conform.

How Constitutional is NAFTA?

“This is an important decision for American businesses and it supports the Coalition’s belief that the NAFTA Chapter 19 system is unconstitutional,” Steve Swanson, chairman of the Coalition and president of the family-run Swanson Group in Oregon, said in a press release.

The USCFL has fought for the elimination of the binational panel review system and called it “a charade designed to provide the appearance of due process without any of its substance.”

The provision allows Canadian and Mexican businesses and individuals to challenge U.S. trade regulations while circumventing Article III courts, such as the U.S. International Trade Commission, which are the typical venues for such matters.

“The system deprives U.S. industries and workers of their right to seek a fair and impartial hearing in trade disputes,” the groups website says.

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reply to post by Blowback


Thanks. And a bit more. ..."Free trade" agreements are best described -and understood- as mergers between global corporations and national governments. As "investor-states," global corporations have all the rights of nations with none of the responsibilities, and all the rights of personhood with few of the responsibilities.

Not my idea of a good time.

reply to post by soficrow


Thanks soficrow for always creating well thought out topics and adding insightful information into topics.

I always say that with government bills you just take the opposite of what their name is and that is what they actually do.

A free trade agreement is basically a not free at all trade agreement.

International trade deals override national laws

This is false.

No international law, treaty, or agreement is allowed to supersede US federal law.

reply to post by Spookybelle


Already addressed. See above.



btw - The US enters into such agreements by the power of federal law. I agree that if there is a conflict between the agreement and other federal laws, then the people have a legal case to invalidate said agreement. BUT - the agreements are written to make it very difficult to make that case if not prevent it outright. If you read the links already provided you will see where and how the US is already paying big money for interfering with global corporations "right to profit" by enforcing previously existing laws. It goes back to "harmonization" and corporations "right to profit" even if that right is damaging to a country's people.

reply to post by OrphanApology


Thanks OrphanApology. ...A network news headline this morning claims this deal moves closer to "creating a level playing field for rich and poor countries." Similar reports claim "free trade" Is "proven" to lift poor countries out of poverty. I don't think so. As you say, free trade isn't free trade. In my opinion, these 'free trade' deals are about creating a global corporate uber-government where the only priority is profit and everything else is dismissed as unimportant: people, health, the environment and the planet.

fascism
noun (Concise Encyclopedia)



Philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state's authority, and harsh suppression of dissent. Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged. Fascism arose during the 1920s and '30s partly out of fear of the rising power of the working classes; it differed from contemporary communism (as practiced under Joseph Stalin) by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems. The leaders of the fascist governments of Italy (1922–43), Germany (1933–45), and Spain (1939–75)—Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Francisco Franco—were portrayed to their publics as embodiments of the strength and resolve necessary to rescue their nations from political and economic chaos. Japanese fascists (1936–45) fostered belief in the uniqueness of the Japanese spirit and taught subordination to the state and personal sacrifice. See also totalitarianism; neofascism

sounds familiar in 2013

reply to post by jimmyx


Are you referring to nation-states or corporate-states aka "investor-states"?

Watched a Blacklist repeat last night. Red and his protege are sitting on a bench looking at the White House. Red says, "People think it matters who lives there. It doesn't. The world is run by multi-national corporations and criminals." Then he sends his protege off to find a corporate espionage agent/assassin. I'm thinking, "Finally. A realistic TV drama."

Sofi for years I have said that America is run by a private interest corporate dictatorship, the prof is in everything that is done in the nation against the public, voters and tax payers, this dictatorship is now global and people still wonder what is wrong with our nation and the politicians, America has not been a nation for the people and by the people for decades our politicians are not longer the peoples choices any more and we has been forced to do by law what the corporate dictatorship wants in order to preserve their power and influence on top of profits.

They can call what they do "trade agreements", "laws" "bills" or anything else but every thing done is only for the benefit of those that now has gotten themselves in positions to control entire countries and their populations.

We have seen how certain countries are able to used their power over other countries to control economies, food is just part of the list, starve a country's population and you got yourself willing slaves.

marg6043
Sofi for years I have said that America is run by a private interest corporate dictatorship, ...
They can call what they do "trade agreements", "laws" "bills" or anything else but every thing done is only for the benefit of those that now has gotten themselves in positions to control entire countries and their populations.

We have seen how certain countries are able to used their power over other countries to control economies, food is just part of the list, starve a country's population and you got yourself willing slaves.

Sad but true.