He has consistency appointed at advisers on trade that represent corporate shills and, you know, the TPP has been negotiated with the help of six hundred so-called advisers who are allowed to see the information about the current text, the drafts.
Members of Congress are not involved-- none of those advisers are members of Congress. None of our efforts to get unredacted copies of current drafts have been refused, I became the first one to see even the redacted copy of the current drafts last year and of those six hundred advisers, five hundred of them are corporate lobbyists. Not a single member of any environmental organization, not a single member of any labor union. The fix is in.
R.K.: So what did you see when you got your look?
A.G.: When I got my look, well first of all let me explain the circumstances. The year before they had simply flatly refused to respond to a letter where one hundred members of Congress said "let's see what you're up to."
When we contacted them they said well we can't show you because it's classified and I said well I'm on the Foreign Affairs Committee so your case is kind of weak here since I have to actually deal with this stuff and I expect you to bring it over. They said well it's classified, I said I have clearance, they said well your staff doesn't have clearance. So if we bring it over to you, we'll show it to you but not your staff and I said okay, alright. And then they said well if we bring it over to you we have to bring it over to you, you can't make any copies. I said, alright, I see where this is going but let's continue. Then they said, well if we give it to you, then you can't discuss it with the media, you can't discuss it with any reporters because it's classified, I said "uh huh, alright, what else you got?" And then they said well we don't want you to discuss it with any other members of Congress. I said, well every member of Congress has clearance for classified information. They said yeah but if you discuss it outside of a secured facility someone might read your lips.
So I said, whatever, just come on in and I'll take a look at the thing. So they came on in and they gave me what's called the redacted version of it, not even the real thing but a redacted version. And it was redacted to hide which countries were propounding which particular provisions.
So let's say you were talking about a position regarding investor trade dispute resolution-- that's a provision that's in the bill, in the draft. And by the way I am not disclosing any classified information by telling you that, that's been wildly reported that there's such a provision in the bill.
Well in a position like that I wouldn't get to actually see the provision, I'd get to see what various countries had suggested to be the provision. And in addition to that I wouldn't know which countries had made which suggestions. So that's what they showed to me. It's a farce.
R.K.: So even when a member of Congress gets a look they really don't see anything?
A.G.: Right as opposed to 500 Corporate lobbyists.
R.K.: How can any member of Congress allow fast tracking let alone vote for anything like that?
A.G.: Well the answer is that the Chamber of Commerce wants it and to some lesser degree the President wants it and that's why it's under consideration. I say lesser degree because the President already understands that the vast majority of the members of the Democratic Party are going to vote against it and he simply hasn't found any way to influence them.
That's sort of where we are at this point with regard to fast track. As of right now if the vote were out today, I'm not sure the President would get twenty democratic votes out of two hundred so we'd be ten to one against it. With regards to Republicans, Republicans are more in play becausethe Republicans love the Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Commerce loves imports and a company like Walmart makes enormous profit by buying crap I guess I can use that term, right? Crap? In China and selling it to consumers in the United States and just pocketing the profits.
So basically, the Chamber of Commerce is almost exclusively lined up behind this. Many Republicans are Chamber Republicans, they're hoping to get the votes that way. I'm skeptical, I think that if they did put up for a vote it would lose because people recognize it's not good for the United States.
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