TPP and Food Sovereignty

When I was in Naturopathic School, I was always irritated by how the medical community could never say words, only the letters. This irritation has been with me throughout my life, trying to keep all the letters straight and what they mean. Now we have a new group of letters, which when I was young stood for toilet papering a house. 

The TPP is an international trade agreement now being negotiated, but you would never know it, since currently being made to buy insurance is heralding the end of the world in the United States of America. The TPP or Trans Pacific Pact, is a trade agreement currently being crafted by numerous nations across the Pacific Ocean. It makes NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement) look like a good idea.

This trade pact, which has very little to do with trade actually, much of it concerns making laws that override national laws and protected freedoms to ensure profits for pharmecuticals, internet material and industrial agriculture corporations, is the greatest threat to our individual rights as human beings than anything ever crafted in modern history. Since our supreme court made corporations into human beings, you can see where this is going. What this has to do with food, is the TPP violates the essence of Food Sovereignty. For a basic discussion and other links, this is a good start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_sovereignty

When I was a student in Naturopathic School, I spent a summer preceptoring with a Naturopath in Kewlona Canada. As I was driving there along windy forested roads in rural eastern British Columbia, I heard a segment on the CBC radio station by Dr. Helen Caldicott. She was quoting a study by an Australian Industrial Psychologist, Alex Carey, on how the USA got from FDR to Reagan in 50 years. Later I found the study published in a book, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy.

The main thesis of the study was looking at the major developments in the 20th Century.

1. The Development of Democracy.

2. The Development of Capitalism

3. The Development of Propaganda to protect Capitalism from Democracy

While the media swirls over jammed websites and politicians threaten to impeach over healthcare insurance we are told that our very democratic principles will be forever lost if we purchase subsidized plans on line. Government shutdowns, 40 congressional votes, and billions have been spent to shield the American people from purchasing mandatory health insurance, and being able to compare plans. While the 113th Congress has worked the least amount of days in the history of the United States of America, the TPP is quietly, secretly being crafted to the real detriment of the American and partner nations people.

The only people privy to this document are the multinational corporations crafting it. Apparently food safety and citizen initiated labeling laws are an impediment to "unfettered capitalism." Threats to our pharmaceutical, labor, health, environmental and safety laws are being written into this document, making farmers, fishermen and normal everyday people vulnerable to international legal sanctions.

http://stoptpp.org/

http://www.exposethetpp.org/

The trade pact will in essence nullify any attempt at GMO labeling, and enable corporations to sue based on "trade barriers." It would become illegal to label where the food comes from, and producers from different nations would not have to adhere to our food safety laws and inspections, (which under normal circumstances are actually inadequate.)

Our very rights to choose what we wish to eat and support producers we want to support is being legislated away while we focus on a governmental insurance health care exchange website. 

The trade pact is being formed by multinationals such as Monsanto and Dupont. Monsanto's profits are decreasing mainly due to the valiant efforts of citizens across the globe that refuse to purchase their products, and work to either ban or label GMO products. Democracy has hurt their bottom line, so they are circumventing national laws passed by citizens in numerous nations, Japan and Peru to name a couple that have banned GMO's from their food system. 

Why is this not national news, international news? The only news source that is covering this to any extent is the Pacifica Network and Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/14/tpp_exposed_wikileaks_publishes_secret_trade If not for the leaked documents, we would have no information on this ongoing event.

I go back to that fateful drive through the Canadian Rockies all those years ago, when I heard that phrase, "The development of propaganda to protect capitalism from democracy."

It is not too late, please write your congress member, your president or prime minister. Here are the links for the United States. 

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=WA

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

This is an excellent website with talking points and social media tools for action:

http://www.flushthetpp.org/tools/

Tell your representatives and leaders that there should be no fast track on the TPP, that you want your laws to be kept in place and full disclosure on the trade pact must be made public before any agreement has been reached. The citizens of the world stopped the World Trade Organization in 1999. The multinational corporations learned their lesson, and have gone into hiding to get what they want. But there are more of us than there are of them, and we can stop this terrible trade pact that will ruin biodiversity, destroy livelihoods and dismantle democracies around the world. The program on December 4th, featured a lengthy discussion on this subject

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/real-food-empire/2013/12/05/trans-pacific-partnership-and-food-sovereignty

Please speak out now, write letters to the editor, call in talk shows, spread the word via twitter, facebook and email. We stopped them before and we can stop them again.