TTIP, Secret Talks And Corporate Lobbyists.

 More on TTIP from SumOf Us:

       Environmental standards, workers’ right and food hygiene are all under the chopping block with TTIP. And even worse: these incredibly sensitive policy areas are being negotiated away in secret -- so far only lobbyists of the big corporations have had access to EU lawmakers.

       But this is about to change. The European Ombudsman -- the place where European citizens can lodge complaints about EU politics -- has opened a formal investigation into TTIP and its lack of transparency following pressure from civil society. We have only 7 days left to write to the Ombudsman and let her know how we feel about our rights being negotiated away in a secret trade deal.

Write an email to the Ombudsman today!

      While lobbyists of the big corporations from Monsanto to Nestle to Exxon Mobile have been going in and out of meetings with lawmakers in Brussels, ordinary citizens are often standing in front of closed doors. That has to change!

      We need actual citizens’ participation in a process that is going to affect our lives as profoundly as the TTIP. We need true access -- to the negotiating documents, the meeting reports and full transparency about which lobbyists are meeting with European lawmakers.

Here is what you need to do: write an email to the European Ombudsman to demand full transparency about the TTIP and in particular the comings and goings of corporate lobbyists. It will only take a few minutes but it will be totally worthwhile.

Here are some talking points you could use for your email:

• The EU should be extremely open and transparent and immediately release all information on the TTIP negotiations, especially when it concerns areas such as environmental standards, workers’ rights and health and safety. 
• The EU should lay open all communication between lobbyists of big business. Sadly, so far business had way more access to negotiations than normal citizens. That needs to change. 
• The EU should release a list of all the meetings that corporations have had with lawmakers.

     Remember: the more personal your message, the more likely it will be read by the Ombudsman.

The leaders of the European Union are starting to really feel the people’s discontent with this secret trade deal. And this is also thanks to you. Thousands of SumOfUs members complained to the EU Commission about corporations being able to sue governments -- the ISDS clause in TTIP. Many of you have chipped in to support our TTIP work and the development of the European Citizens’ Initiative. Now is the time to keep up the pressure!

Send an email to the Ombudsman to ask for full access to the TTIP negotiations and transparency about the comings and goings of corporate lobbyists.

     Thanks for all you do, 

Anne, Hannah, and the team at SumOfUs

More information:

European Ombudsman launches public consultation in relation to the transparency of the TTIP negotiations

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

Getting Fat On Other People's Sweat.

       Some crazy figures in this capitalist world that show the inequality created by this insane, unjust, exploitative system. Despite the screams of disaster and crisis in 2008, and not forgetting the Eurozone problems, according to a recent report from Credit Suisse, global wealth has more than doubled since 2000, reaching over £150 trillion, During this period have you personally felt the benefits of this remarkable growth? On the contrary, for you and I, this period has been one long spell of “austerity”, falling incomes, shrinking social services and deteriorating living standards. 

     Crisis or no crisis, we still create wealth at an enormous rate, where is it going? Well, there are approximately 5 billion adults in the world today, but just 8.4% of whom own 83.4% of all household wealth. At the other end, approximately two-thirds of adults in the world have less than $10,000 of net wealth, while approximately 3.2 billion adults have nil, nothing. 

     So at one end we have billions of people with no wealth what so ever, nothing. While we have 32 million people who own $98 trillion of the world's wealth, that's 41% of the total. At the top of this heap of parasites, wallowing in unbelievable unearned wealth, we have just over 98,000 individuals who have more than $50 million each, with almost 34,000 of those owning more than $100 million each. It works out that 1% of the population own 41% of the world's wealth, 10% own 86%, and the bottom half, the you and me's, own just 1%. 

    It doesn't take a mathematical expert to work out that we have enough material wealth to see to the needs of all our people, but this man made, crazy, greedy driven system, is not built to do that, it is doing what it was meant to do, make rich people richer, and to hell with the rest of you. However, never forget that the parasites are getting fat on our poverty and sweat, every penny of that wealth was created by the you and me's of this world, it is ours, we just have to take it all back, but when? 

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

An Open Letter.

      Willie McDougall was one of Glasgow's life long anarchists and a bitter anti-war campaigner. As a conscientious objector he was sent to Dartmoor prison. Somehow he managed to get his hands on a bicycle and proceeded to cycle off, making his way back to Glasgow, where he continued his anti-war campaigning. 

 Photo courtesy of Bob Jones and Gina Bridgeland.

       This is an extract from an open letter he wrote to Mr Callaghan, leader of the Labour Party. Though some what dated, it still makes for interesting reading.

        The entire letter can be read at Spirit of Revolt, "Read of the Month"

RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT.

      The old Fabians, although reformist, carried out a vigorous propaganda against Rent, Interest and Profit, all legalised forms of robbery of the common people. This view was also held by such famous socialists as Upton Sinclair and Robert Blatchford.

      In order to buy off counter-revolutionary violence the latter were prepared to pay modest compensation to these robbers, but only for their own life time. In the case of landowners they quoted John Ball, the Kentish Priest, whose text was: "When Adam delved and Eve span who was then the Gentleman?" He was hanged for demanding the land for the people.

      Somewhere along the line in all countries the land was stolen by force, or deceit from the common people. The Red Indians in America, the Zulus in Africa, the Aborigines in Australia were massacred, while in Europe and in Scotland there were Sutherland-type Clearances.

     Jack Jones has quipped that two-thirds of the members of the House of Lords are descendants of cattle thieves, land thieves or Court prostitutes. This applies also to our landlords. Whoever got the original titles had no moral or ethical right to acquire, sell or bequeath them.

     Blatchford cleverly shows the unfair parallel with the useful writer or inventor.... The latter's copyright lasts only 50 years whereas land rights, like interest are in perpetuity. The burden of interest which lies like an Albatross round the necks of all our big cities, causes rents to be at least three times higher than necessary. As our great Scottish revolutionary, John Maclean, pointed out, the perpetual burden of interest on the nationalised industries makes it difficult for them to be viable.---- 

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