Secret Deals, Secret Courts, To Protect Profits!!!

      Secret deals between governments and multi-national corporations, can't be good for the general public, or they wouldn't be secret.

     If it is signed, future laws designed to protect consumers, our health, and our environment could be overturned in secret courts by corporations that claim the laws harm their profits---

This from the SumOfUs:

      It's a corporate lobbyist's wildest dream -- a huge global trade deal that would let corporations like Monsanto sue our governments if they passed laws to protect the environment or keep life-saving medicine affordable.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership has to be stopped.

       This month, tens of thousands of American SumOfUs members and friends have called Congress to demand it rejects a bill to give President Obama "fast track" authority to sign the TPP -- and support is starting to fall away. But it's not enough.

      In the US, corporate lobbyists are pushing hard for Congress to approve. Elsewhere, governments are facing no scrutiny as they get ready to sign away our democratic rights to make laws that protect the public interest. Unless we do more, we may lose this fight.

       That's why our community is stepping up. This week, we're getting ready to launch a major effort to stop the TPP in its tracks -- and with your support, we're not going to stop fighting until we've won.

If enough of us can chip in just $1, we can launch the first steps of our campaign and start working together to stop the TPP and save our democracy.

We can't talk about all our plans yet, but we're already looking to:

• Target key countries that can stop the TPP -- like Australia and Canada -- and make sure that citizens hear about the TPP before it's too late
• Call out consumer companies who have access to the negotiations and are helping write the deal -- rights our elected representatives don't even have -- and demand they come clean on what they know
• Organize constituents to contact their representatives -- to make sure the TPP is something that governments have to answer for
• Work with lawyers to submit Freedom of Information requests for governments to come clean on the deal
• Offer rewards for officials who are willing to do the right thing and let the public know what's in the TPP
• Take out advertisements in key national media highlighting the threats the TPP poses to our democracies

       The corporations behind the TPP know the public won't like what's in the deal. That's why the full contents are still secret -- only high-level government negotiators and the 600 corporate lobbyists have access. 

But we know enough to know that the TPP has to be stopped -- and enough to know how we can stop it with your help.

Can you chip in $1 to fund our campaign to stop the TPP and protect our democracies?

       The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is called a trade deal, but it is really a corporate wish-list aimed at attacking everything from environmental protections to affordable medicines to internet freedoms. Worst, it gives corporations impunity from governments or citizens that want to reign in their power. 

        In fact, it is probably the most important international treaty you’ve never heard of. The TPP is being negotiated between the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and other Pacific countries -- making it nearly global in scope.

There's lots wrong with the TPP, but the unaccountable systems it would set up to allow corporations to sue governments are one of the most frightening. If it is signed, future laws designed to protect consumers, our health, and our environment could be overturned in secret courts by corporations that claim the laws harm their profits -- and there is nothing we or our elected governments could do to stop them.

      We need to do a lot more to make sure we stop this treaty -- and we need your help to do that.

If you can, please chip in $1 today to take a stand for democracy and against the TPP, and fund the fight to stop this corporate power grab.

Thanks for all you do,

Paul and the team at SumOfUs.org

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk