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Google Announces Support of the Controversial TPP (recode.net)
An anonymous reader writes: Google has announced in a blog post Friday their support for the controversial Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP). Recode reports: "The trade agreement includes key provisions about the global passage of digital data, intellectual property and copyright -- measures that have drawn criticism from both the political right and left, including several outspoken tech groups. Google's endorsement isn't exactly full-throated, but its stake clearly demonstrates another key area of support with the Obama administration, to which Google is close." Google's SVP and general counsel Kent Walker wrote: "The TPP is not perfect, and the trade negotiation process would certainly benefit from greater transparency. We will continue to advocate for process reforms, including the opportunity for all stakeholders to have a meaningful opportunity for input into trade negotiations." The company has already shown support of the TPP behind the Internet Association, which endorsed the trade agreement in March. Google joins a list of other tech titans, like Apple and Microsoft, who have shown their support as well. The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the TPP a "secretive, multinational trade agreement" that will restrict IP laws and enforce digital policies that "benefit big corporations at the expense of the public." The TPP is still awaiting congressional approval after being signed in February.
Im pretty sure the party they mostly like is the prohibition on countries demanding data for their citizens be stored in the respective country so that the local militarized police can go in and demand access to it at any time. A lot of the other things they are not so happy about, but are willing to swallow a lot of bad things in order to get that in as a binding provision. Most people don't want to have to be building data centers all over the planet which can then be seized the next time a local politician thinks it would be neat to own a supercomputer. They also want to be able to migrate and replicate data outside the country in question to avoid downtime.
Revolution does not mean violent revolution; we are talking about a political revolution. Of course, now that Sanders appears to have lost the nomination the only real chance is for the electorate to demand he run as an independent or for the Greens. I know he doesn't want to, but maybe the case can be made that he owes his country a real option.
There will of course be people who whine about him 'splitting the vote', by which they mean giving people an actual choice to support a candidate that isn't a member of the One Party; the one bought and paid for by corporations. We thought Obama was that candidate. He wasn't. He lied.
Can I ask you something? Why didn't you use your gun to stop the "unholy alliance of corporations and government" from forming in the first place? Why is it the millennials job to fix it after the fact, while you (and those of your generation) were asleep at the wheel?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
The better way is to make the politicians fear the public again. Start voting out the idiots in office. Show them that if you screw up and start favoring the corps, you're history.
However, with American complacency at its highest ever (probably), they don't have anything to fear. Keep giving them their XBone, Netflix, Food Stamps, and Social Security and all your little servants will be content. Feed them useless entertainment news about Bieber and the latest outrage about some LGBT bathroom scandal, and by the time they drop the news that they are bending you regarding your rights, you're too tired to fight it because you've been arguing about if a naturally born male should be allowed in a female bathroom.
To back up mjm, guns brings out bigger guns. If you haven't noticed, Police departments have ex-military vehicles now. They can withstand a revolution better than you or I can. They have the armor to defend themselves.
Start getting pissed off and vote your congresscritters out. Then you may watch them start listening again.
What an insufferable twat. You really think you have it all figured out don't you?
Nobody likes having their illusions shattered, but yours (and the GP's) are fucking stupid, and you need it.
What I achieve and what you *think* I achieve are not the same thing. People getting involved and writing letters also means *they* get educated and the politicians know they are under observation because they know they won't get away with something unnoticed. Maybe, just maybe, they will do something or not do something.
I have no illusions to shatter, I know this system is corrupt and that what I am doing will probably fail. Reading and writing about these laws helps you see exactly what is going on behind the scenes and to understand what is going on because there are as much lessons in failure as there are in success. Frankly, it's more interesting than anything on the TV. You know the system as corrupt the difference is I have some ideas as to the depth of that corruption where it is and hasn't reached.
As you rightly pointed out, education. It starts with people educating themselves about what is going on, what is not reported in the news and, actually reading Bills that are drafted. Look at Burr-Feinstein and encryption, there was enough resistance to knock that over because it was stupid. However what you don't realize is that is the first round in this battle not to decrypt communications, but to record meta data through the definitions of data drafted in the bill - which will survive elsewhere because they went virtually unnoticed this time around. Has your cynicism produced enough insights to understand the state of play and look for where it will come up again?
The covert police state is revealing itself because the American Empire is on the verge of collapse and desperate to maintain control. Desperate sick animals are dangerous and often lash out. If you read the TPP you would see that it is a battering ram to legally pillage every country that is forced to interact with American corporations through ISDS. The TPP aims to spread the American Empire with desperate times and suffering ahead. We are in this together, are you prepared?
You say what I am doing is 'fucking stupid', but you have little idea why I do it. I don't accept anything you have said here. I have resisted the urge to patronise you in return because I read your posts when I see them and I respect your opinions but for all your vitriol I think you are criticizing me because you are afraid and I don't blame you, so am I.
What is your suggestion? What do you *do*? What have you done? Do you even have an answer?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.