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n2doc's Journal'Blind agreement' and closed-door deals: Report slams TPP negotiations
As a trade deal between Australia and its allies edges closer towards completion, leading critics to warn of an impending "attack [on] internet freedoms," a parliamentary committee has slammed the deal-making process saying it lacks adequate "oversight and scrutiny."
The comments come as Australia engages in closed-door negotiations with 11 other countries over the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- a trade agreement that could change the copyright and piracy landscape in Australia and have major ramifications for the way Australians access online content.
A joint-Parliamentary report on the TPP and other trade deals has declaimed that "not is all right with the current process" and that politicians and key stakeholders are being "kept in the dark" on the negotiation process.
The "Blind Agreement" report warns that under the current system, "Parliament is faced with an all-or-nothing choice" on whether or not to approve trade agreements and can only officially review trade laws once they've officially passed.
"This does not provide an adequate level of oversight and scrutiny," the report reads. "Parliament should play a constructive role during negotiations and not merely rubber-stamp agreements that have been negotiated behind closed doors."
more
http://www.cnet.com/au/news/blind-agreement-and-closed-door-deals-report-slams-tpp-negotiation-process/
Sanders can give America what it needs: Some good old-fashioned class warfare
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has struck a nerve in the heart of America. Throughout the country, the Vermont Senator has been drawing enormous crowds, equal to that of Hillary, while also gaining in the polls and prompting Clinton to muster up her best Elizabeth Warren impression. It is clear that Sanders’ populist message, which addresses economic inequality and Wall Street corruption, is resonating with the American people. But what’s most important about the rise of Bernie Sanders, whether you believe he is a true populist or a cog in the Democratic machine, is that he (and other progressives like Warren) is bringing back what has long been stomped out in America: class politics.
Well, thats not entirely true. Class politics never really went away, there was simply a shift in aggression. Since the ’70s, the ruling class has gone on the offensive, while the middle and lower classes have been brought to their knees. Of course, when the lower classes go on the attack, its class warfare; but when the ruling class does it, it’s reform. (At least this is what has been hammered into the minds of so many Americans over the past 40 or so years.)
Just think of Bill Clinton’s welfare reform and his promise to “end welfare as we know it.” The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act was signed into law in 1996, and was a culmination of over 20 years of ruling-class propaganda. Politicians, pundits, and the media managed to create a nasty picture of the poor leaching off of everyone else in America, while popular terms like “welfare queen” were added to the lexicon. But what was particularly clever about this attack on the underclass was how it became as much about race as it was about class. This was not an accident. Since the Civil Rights era, racial prejudices have been used to divide the lower classes, dismantling of the New Deal coalition — which had been racially and culturally diverse — in the late ’60s.
University of Minnesota Sociologist, Joe Soss, explained the evolution of this strategy to BillMoyers.com:
“In the 1980s and ’90s, a kind of narrative had emerged that I call the story of illegitimate takings. It held that there were white people who played by the rules, and then there were people of color — and particularly black people — who were taking from those people in an illegitimate way.”
more
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/29/bernie_sanders_can_give_america_what_it_needs_some_good_old_fashioned_class_warfare/
Did The Four Dissenting Justices In Gay Marriage Case Just Suggest Treason?
The conservative justices’ incendiary dissents in Obergefell are a shocking betrayal of judicial responsibility
In controversial cases, is the role of jurist to inflame controversy, or quell it?
In Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 case which found race-based marriage bands unconstitutional, Chief Justice Earl Warren built a 9-0 consensus—just as he’d done years earlier in Brown vs. Board of Education. He knew that a country divided by race ought to be united, if possible, by a Supreme Court mindful of fundamental values—even if the Court was, as the constitution requires, overturning the will of the majority.
The four dissents in the landmark case on same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges, one by each of the conservative justices on today’s Supreme Court, take a very different view. With invective and hyperbole, they pour fuel on the fire of the controversy over same-sex marriage. Rather than merely state their views and disagreements, they use heated language to accuse the five-person majority of imperialism, a “putsch,” and worse.
Thus, the unprecedented calls of elected officials for open revolt against the Supreme Court—a shocking display of treason—are now accompanied by calls from within the Court itself that Obergefell is illegitimate, and the Supreme Court itself no longer worthy of full respect.
Ironically, in alleging a new low for the Court, these four justices have brought one into being. Justice Scalia has, as usual, grabbed the spotlight with juvenile taunting usually reserved for the playground. But in fact, all four opinions are shocking.
more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/27/did-dissenting-justices-suggest-treason.html
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