Call to Oppose the TTIP - The Free Trade Agreement between the EU and US!

[10 Bears]

This is an issue that I guess most of you wont have heard of as its been kept out of the press for several reasons. In short, major corperations in the US and EU have been having secret negotiations with EU governments (including ours) to try to create a Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP), which in other words is a free trade agreement (FTA) between the US and EU.

 

Now, while that sounds good, history has shown that FTAs have been pretty disasterous despite all the promises of jobs and prosperity that they were expected to bring. For example, the North American FTA (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico which was intended to create more wealth, has been shown to have caused fewer jobs in the US, created higher poverty in Mexico, and created a situation where a US fracking company was allowed to sue the Canadian government for CA$250M - because the Canadians didnt want fracking.

 

That doesnt sound right does it? However, under the terms of FTAs, and this is also included in the proposed TTIP between the US and EU, the respective companies and banks have the right to sue the Government if a decision like the fracking one goes against an organisation that is in the FTA! This is called Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), again this is included in the proposed TTIP that our Government is currently in negotiations to sign up to.

 

Why is this a bad idea? Well, aside from the history telling us FTAs dont work, if in our weakened economy state we (the UK) were sued by a bank or organisation in the TTIP it would generally mean higher taxes, less investment in the member state, higher national debt etc. etc.

 

This video provides an easy to understand overview of the TTIP:

 

 

There is currently a consultation that is open on the TTIP but it is only open for 2 days! So, if any of this has struck a cord with you, then you may want to lodge your objections to the whole idea of the TTIP, or simply your objection to ISDS should you be so inclined.

 

The easiest way to do this is via the group 38 Degrees, who have created an on-line form that you can populate to voice your objection and that will be deposited on the necessary consultation. The link to this is here:

 

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/tell-ttip-negotiators-not-to-let-corporations-sue-governments#petition

 

You will have to write an individual objection, complete a "Captcha" (the numbers and letters validation process), and you may get a security warning as the data will be passed from one secure site to another - but it is secure and safe. Then its all done.

 

I'm not overly a political person, but sometimes issues like this arise and I wonder how on earth can our Government be so stupid? Hence, this call to arms.

 

I hope that many of you see the right thing to do, and spend a few minutes to lodge your objections to the TTIP or the ISDS!

[sloth]

On my way over now...

I don't think it is our government being stupid, but rathet run behind the scenes by those with real power and ulterior motives. No good at all!

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Arbtalk mobile app

[sloth]

Seems the Europa server is currently unavailable. I'll try again later

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Arbtalk mobile app

[10 Bears]

I wonder if the server is being hammered! It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, although the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it could be a deceitful ploy to reduce the number of negative comments and objections....

[sloth]

Hmm, I'm sure no one has ever disrupted communication unlawfully for their own benefit...

 

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[billpierce]

Done.

 

Boggles the mind doesn't it?

[SteveA]

Yep, sent in my remarks on this earlier.

Makes me feel really angry that this is even being discussed/ considered.

Puts my mind to riot. aaaaargh!!

 

Wish they'd leave ordinary good people alone to get on with their good everyday lives, like, ummm, errr, shopping at Tesco, and ummm, hmmm poisoning weeds with Roundup, and buying one chicken getting two free, etc, etc.... (and in here lies the problem).

 

For things to really change we all need to stop buying into the corporate crap.

[10 Bears]

I wonder if the server is being hammered! It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, although the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it could be a deceitful ploy to reduce the number of negative comments and objections....

 

Methinks we predicted this... You will never guess what the European Commission is saying happened regarding the TTIP consultation! Read on...

 

Frustratingly, you’re going to need to resubmit your response to the EU’s consultation on TTIP. Last week, so many of us submitted to the consultation that their website crashed!

 

25,000 submissions were saved by the 38 Degrees office team while the EU's site was down. Using lawyers to show how serious we are, we asked the TTIP team to accept these responses in bulk. But they’ve refused. They haven’t given a reason - it just seems like a case of ‘computer says no.’

 

We only have a few days to resubmit. Don’t worry, you don’t need to rewrite your response. Once you click the link below, you’ll be taken to the consultation page, and it’ll be filled in with what you wrote last Thursday.

 

Please click the link to resubmit your response to the consultation on TTIP. You’ll need to do a quick security check before the EU will accept it:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/EU-TTIP-Consultation

 

When the site crashed last week, the office team assumed that the TTIP team would take a common-sense approach to accepting the saved responses. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, and we’re really sorry. We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for you to resubmit to the consultation.

 

When you click the link, as well as your previous response, you’ll also see a sentence that says that you’re resubmitting. Lawyers have advised the office team to add this so that we can see how many people’s responses needed to get resubmitted.

 

Please click here to resubmit to the EU consultation on TTIP:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/EU-TTIP-Consultation

 

So those of you that did lodge your concerns, please return to the site from the same computer and resubmit your comments. Ive just done this in less than 30 seconds.

 

Of course, this also gives everyone else the opportunity to submit their views as well if they missed it the first time...

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

The U>S dollar is folding, and so they must rape the world to sustain an unsustainable fiat currency, and if we don't subscribe and slave to the behemoth we will pay one way or another.

 

America is dying folks, but shes thrashing around still.

[porky]

Signed