Sign Points to Clinton Flexibility on TPP

By MARK ANDERSON

Traversing Arkansas July 29, this writer happened upon the day’s edition of the establishment Arkansas Democrat Gazette, which carried a front-page report about an Arkansas delegate being thrown out of the recent Democratic National Convention — for hoisting a sign near the stage front emblazoned with the forbidden words: “No TPP.”

Perhaps the daring sign-bearer pondered George Orwell’s premise that “free speech is the freedom to say what people don’t want to hear,” but he must have forgotten that such wisdom is lost on those who inhabit the nation’s newsrooms and the dominant political parties.

The TPP, of course, is the Trans Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade, investment and corporate-profit-protection scheme. It’s the largest such multilateral treaty in human history.

If the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was and still is bad — and it is — then the TPP is far worse. The same goes for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. All such wealth-depleting, nationhood-eroding treaties are instruments under which Congress, having voted to approve the “agreements,” basically transfers — some would say surrenders — its constitutionally required duty to regulate trade.

The transnational system that’s consequently empowered by these trade pacts is complete with private court tribunals that are weighted against sovereignty, such as when a private tribunal, in seeking to protect the profits of agri-business, would strike down national laws that limit or prohibit the importation of genetically modified foods and food products.

Regarding the ouster of that sign-holder at the Philadelphia convention, the Democrat Gazette noted: “Frank Klein of Mount Ida was stripped of his credentials by the state delegation for holding aloft a placard opposing a trade agreement [the TPP] favored by the Obama administration,” adding, “[Bernie Sanders] delegate Jason Thompson of Russellville said officials threatened to eject him twice ... after he waved [his own anti-TPP sign] and made comments to a reporter that were viewed as anti-Hillary Clinton. Clinton, a former secretary of state, opposes the proposed trade agreement.”

Response: Hillary does not oppose the TPP.

Besides, why didn’t Hillary send word to re-admit Klein back into the delegate fold? Why didn’t she respond in a manner that would lend a little credence to shallow media claims that she’s all about free speech and “against” the TPP? The reason is that Hillary supports the TPP. She always has. And she always will.

We’ve got to get real. Hillary is not some grassroots Democrat “working girl.” In reality, she’s a loyal member of the trans-national establishment which operates on behalf of entrenched world banks and other power players who’ve designed a private governance network. The trade agreements are a key part of their infrastructure, although its inner-core is the private central banking system that cornered money-creation and lends to governments and individuals, at perpetual interest.

The real Hillary is the one who often speaks to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which stridently supports the TPP and related pacts—the CFR being the US outpost of the world’s policy-planning politburo that supplies carefully-placed personnel and policy “advice” to the government. And her recent string of speeches to the high flyers of finance for around $250,000 per speech, including to pro-trade Goldman Sachs, further illustrate her real allegiances.

The Washington Free Beacon online came up with 24 speeches Mrs. Clinton gave as secretary of state in which she highlighted and praised the TPP negotiations. That included two CFR speeches, a speech to the Foreign Policy Group, another to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and two others to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group.

What happened was simply this: Mrs. Clinton, having very recently praised the massive trade pact (pushed by Democratic President Obama and many Republicans in Congress), flip-flopped and verbally “opposed” the trade pact — but only because she had lost political ground to her former rival for the Democratic nod, Sen. Bernie Sanders, a TPP foe.

“It’s no wonder that with all of her flip-flopping on TPP, she and her allies at the State Department wouldn’t want the public to see her email correspondence on the [trade] deal,” the news site www.Lifezette.com added, in its discussion of one key reason why disturbing details of Hillary’s email scandal have been kept in the shadows, even while she’s allowed to reach for the presidency without indictment.

Hopefully, dejected Sanders supporters won’t buy Hillary’s anti-TPP line. All of this shows that there is room for a new populist party, if you will, wherein disaffected rebel Republicans who also oppose such trade scams could unify with anti-TPP Democrats and use the trade issue to seriously challenge the two-party duopoly’s stranglehold.

Mark Anderson is a veteran journalist who divides his time between Texas and Michigan. Email him at truthhound2@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2016

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