Kaal posted:

Frankly there's no reason for most of it to be kept secret. The folks who are in favor of that aspect might want to paint the whole thing as some kind of hush-hush negotiation, but the reality is that most of it is globally standardized and it'd be very possible to write it in such a way that would permit public debate over the broad strokes of all aspects of the treaty, as well as most details. If we can talk about nuclear weapons in an open way without giving away the classified details (aka SALT I & II), then certainly we can talk about trade and investment law.

McDowell posted:

When does mass media talk at all about trade policies? Evernythjng we've heard has seemed like a t last ditch effort to use Obama's brand to advance TPP. I would love a recent example of policy specifics and alternatives being discussed on CNN/Fox/MSNBC.

Remember globalization is an inevitable force that we have no agency over, like a hurricane.

Kaal posted:

You might think so, but that isn't actually true. People deal with sensitive information all the time in all sorts of fields. It's not like a nurse or a soldier or a lawyer or a bureaucrat can't talk about her job without also divulging secret information. Somewhere, in whatever office or division you work in, there is a PR person whose job is to work with the press and portray your work in an open and non-classified manner.

Kaal posted:

Lol. Ok well I know for a fact that you aren't "legally prevented" from talking about the basic principles of your job, why it's important, how it functions on a day-to-day basis, who are the organizations involved, etc. You might not be able to talk about specific elements about operational deployments or equipment design, but you're more than capable of discussing the broad strokes of your job in a way that the public understands.

Kaal posted:

Well, duder, that's pretty much totally bullshit. Human society works on knowing the broad strokes. You have political opinions on a broad range of topics, and few of them are based on the exact wording of the laws that govern them. There's no need to know every last detail about a topic before forming an opinion about it. Certainly if you work with classified material then you should know that.

Kaal posted:

"That's just, like, your opinion man" is not a particularly persuasive response. Political discourse is the exchange of opinion. Democracy is pretty much founded on the idea that a good society incorporates the opinions of all its citizenry.

Kaal posted:

Not all matters of state at any time, but most matters of state at most times. And that doesn't have to do with the representative democracy / pure democracy distinction at all, since even a pure democracy can recognize the need for discretion and find accommodation. Similarly, not all of our representatives have an explicit right to review all matters of state at any time, but they figure out ways to maintain congressional oversight.

Kaal posted:

I'm not "ceding" anything, these are basic principles of our government. And specifically the mechanism is the US Constitution and a series of Supreme Court judgments that have made it clear that the public has a fundamental right to know. That right is balanced against the government's responsibility to guard American interests. The enforcement of that balance is generally contingent upon the proof that censorship is required in the interests of national security, or personal privacy. It's the difference between saying, "There's a Tomahawk Cruise missile with XYZ specifications and design specs, which is located at the following coordinates" and "There's a Tomahawk Cruise missile with Block B Specifications and is located at the Howardson Strategic Air Force Base." There's a whole host of elements that you could look into, far too many to go into in a thread like this, but a good place to start would be Near v. Minnesota, and of course the First Amendment.

SedanChair posted:

By default. Are you in the habit of wagging your tail and blurting out "I support this" when you know nothing about it, just because your paymasters told you it was worth supporting? That explains everything.

SedanChair posted:

I didn't attribute anything to you, I simply asked if you are as credulous in other matters as you are in this one.

SedanChair posted:

Because the default position is to not support things. If you support them without knowing about them that makes you credulous. That's the definition of "credulous."

SedanChair posted:

No, there are no other positions. That option amounts to "not support." If your position is that you need more data before deciding whether to support something, you are currently in a state of not supporting it. If your position is "I don't deserve more data, I support it even if I don't have any data," guess what that is? It starts with a "c."

Effectronica posted:

I'm referring to the attitude that trade deals can only be conducted when the public is ignorant of what's happening. Obviously, this isn't true for TPP.

Caros posted:

Yeah, gently caress democracy!

Effectronica posted:

Andrew Jackson, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the suffragists- they all put paid to your fantasy world.

computer parts posted:

It sounds like "corporate courts" is a massive scare tactic by ignorant people, similar to how CDNs were called "fast lanes to the internet" back during the net neutrality panic.

phasmid posted:

I'm sure the reason this treaty has been so carefully crafted and cleverly hidden has nothing to do with anybody's secret agenda. It's also reassuring that as a treaty, it can't really be dismantled or cast aside. Let's give it a fair hearing. I'm sure it was only kept secret from us for so long because it's too important to trust to your average citizen.

Neurolimal posted:

This isn't a war, lives are not in jeopardy, revealing what our representatives are pushing for provides far more benefits to the represented than any potential damage that could be done.

Trade is not something that you have to leave to the "big boys" (when they arent gambling on bubbles and endorsing austerity against the advice of economists). It concerns workers as a whole and we deserve to be aware of what is happening to our rights.

quote:

Anything that may jeopardize human lives and otherwise does not concern or affect the representes people; the government is well within its rights to reserve information regarding spies, espionage, double-agents, etc., so long as it is not committed on the represented (in which case the people seserve to know why and how, if not the specifics) and the information is provided once it is no longer crucial and will not harm lives.

quote:

Trade is not War. Trade concerns the public. Trade affects the public. Trade deals can compromise the publics' rights. The people deserve to know what will be impacting them.

The only way this line of thought is either A) You genuinely believe the public is unworthy of protecting themselves, and should expect lobbyist-guided officials to handle their wellbeing without public oversight or B) this is indeed a war, on the public, and subject to the laws and methods of war. In which case your defense of the elite's actions clearly displays which side you belong to.

Neurolimal posted:

The people as a whole contains members who can interpret and explain issues requiring skilled knowledge. By nature of being a member of the underclass they have little reason to work against their (the public)'s interests, and no matter how you feel about the publics' intelligence they still deserve to be given as much opportunity to influence their government as possible. You cannot trust upper class citizens, influenced by the elite via an established fourth chamber of bribery, to work in the publics influence behind closed doors.

Neurolimal posted:

How can you be both progressive and completely bound ideologically by the law? The law is not inherently just, this is the basic for a large array of leftist issues, including police reform.

quote:

Social and environmental issues will always struggle against generational gaps. Global Warming and envirknmental damage has been universally accepted as truth. Where things falter is discussion on if it will be a problem in the long-term. Elite interests have put forth massive media campaigns to push forth simultaneously that Global Warming is not a concern, and that current methods are already green or productive towards stopping global warming. In spite of this setback half of america is still convinced global warming is a problem.

The progress made so far is a testament to the power of the public and hard-working intellectuals among the public.

quote:

Lobbyist action in the past decade, the banking crisis, the housing bubble, austerity, and the dismantlememt of social security and government healthcare is a strong argument that no, the elites with their fingers in this deal most assuredly do not give an inkling of a poo poo about the long-term good of America and its people.

You're blinding yourself with liberal exceptionalism, stroking your balls while the rich lean over your back and whisper sweet nothings to you. You are a part of the public, and you will not be laughing with the stockholders.

walgreenslatino posted:

In a complete and utter shock, the deal is almost exactly what was leaked months ago. But remember, it was wrong to come to a conclusion based on a preliminary leak.

walgreenslatino posted:

Jitzu_the_Monk posted:

New Chris Hedges piece about the TPP

Pope Guilty posted:

Just the impending vote to authorize.

Neurolimal posted:

as if people needed more reasons to ignore this thread and its proponents, lol

Effectronica posted:

What I would like you to do, at this point, is look over your posts on the previous page, quote them all in the same post, and provide a definition of "globalization" that is consistent across all of them. Since this will not happen, I suppose I'm just going to have to pretend that you were struck dead by God after making this post, because discussion is clearly impossible.