(TPP) Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (NAFTA/SOPA #2)

[Rivare]

The following post is copy/pasta from my thread on the FurAffinity Forums (My full furry name is Kyrodo Rivare Blackheart. if you know what that implies, deal with it. If you read on, we have more important things to worry about.)
Link to my thread:
http://forums.furaffinity.net/thread...AFTA-SOPA-2%29

If you read, I said I'd never post about this again, but I feel this is VERY important. Quote Begin. End of post = end of quote.
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SOPA/PIPA's been taken down. The next three threats from what I've seen are the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act (PCIP) by Lamar Smith who made SOPA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement which has information posted on it already anyway, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP or TPPA) which has no information posted on it so far on this forum.

First I will provide some helpful sources that provide information on TPP, then I will provide a quick summary below.

A fair warning that some of the following information is dated by a couple of months. For video, up to a little more than half a year.

Site dedicated to TPP created by New Zealand:
http://tppwatch.org/what-is-tppa/

Some of the following videos have multiple parts to it, which I will indicate. Please use the related video links in youtube to find the rest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh_FhRSCJEM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2U2S7RWfNk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXLpuYBwOiY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyi7cIzvEkM
(1 of 2. Directly describes it's threats on internet privacy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5IuLLVg2Lc
(1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgYbFjmtCAU
(1 of 4. Staggering amount of information, so be warned.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNFwINSo3w


If you ever heard of NAFTA, TPP is basically NAFTA on steroids. Favors multinational corporations, and throws the rest of us into poverty. It'll also force all countries under this agreement to enforce strong copyright infringement laws on any and all Intellectual Property (again, internet censorship).

As a quick summary of what this bill represents (from what I've learned from these sources so far and from articles linked in Twitter), this bill being discussed behind closed doors among multiple countries, will undoubtedly boost profits for multinational corporations, while severely hampering those for ordinary middle and lower class citizens, and crippling the agricultural industry. This will also prevent any government intervention in the dealings of large corporations. From the videos of the forum, PHARMACS which aims to keep lifesaving drugs in the US at affordable will be taken down. Consequently, prices for these life saving drugs will raise considerably at the leisure of the corporations who set these prices to whatever they wish. Corporations will also have the ability to SUE foreign governments if they attempt to make any government intervention that interferes with their practices. Though it boasts the abundance of jobs, it will actually have the opposite effect and lower the number of available jobs to the middle and working class, and will also knock down or cripple many small businesses. We can expect an even worse economic depression if this bill manages to take hold. It will also enforce all countries beneath this agreement to enforce strict copyright infringement laws on all forms of intellectual property, including but not limited to downloaded movies and other internet material. Ultimately, the US plans to impose this "Free Trade Agreement" onto other countries after the negotiations are finished, and all the rules and regulations on the agreement have been finalized, in hopes of creating one global market where prices on all goods are set to the lowest common denominator, set by the multi-national corporations in control of these prices. This also means effectively internet all over the globe will be directly regulated by their respective governments, partly because they have no choice.

TPP was actually started in 2006 by New Zealand and several other countries, but the US government didn't join in until 2010, after which the entire agreement has been spear-headed by them, and has asked other countries, like Japan, very intensively to join in under this agreement. The countries are, off the TPP website: the US and New Zealand, plus Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Japan, Canada and Mexico are in the wings.

Because it is still being negotiated, other propositions may also be brought to the table so we haven't even seen the end result yet, and by the time we do, it'll be too late for any of us to stop it. The reason is because this is free trade agreement just like ACTA, which means this an executive order and does not require parliament/congress approval. This also how they've been able to keep this a secret from us. The only reason we know anything about its existence is through wiki-leaks.

This agreement will directly benefit government and large corporations (the 1%), but severely undermine everyone else (understatement). You can expect that many large corporations are directly supporting this agreement through direct financial contributions.

Quickest Summary Possible:
TPP is worse than ACTA, SOPA, and NAFTA put together.

A way to fight TPP via auto-email, if you think it'll help:
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia.....ction_KEY=8229

Now a couple of points about this topic. My main goal is only to spread the word. I am not a political expert on this or anything else for that matter. In fact I hate politics, and the SOPA incident is the only reason I came to know about the rest of these bills, and came to care about what these idiots do.

I've had little to no influence getting this information around, even on the other bills, on any of the other sites I use, so this is my final post concerning this or any other of the bills mentioned at the top. After this, I'm done, and I'm going back to gaming and focusing on my own matters.

This likely will not be ratified this year, so we don't have until at least 2013 before we have to worry about it. Though I honestly don't expect this to fly, especially with Japan facing massive public opposition.

I didn't see any other topics on this even via search, but if there was, please delete this.