Tag Archives: corporate bill of rights

Awakening a Sleeping Giant

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Sign at Occupy Wall Street .

Sign at Occupy Wall Street .

Update, June 13:   Fast Track was defeated in the House of Representatives… for now.  We can do this if we are in the struggle for the long haul.  Success!

My dear friends,

If you ever plan to participate in decisions made by so-called “leaders” on your behalf, today is the day to do it.  The Senate already passed “Fast Track” trade negotiating authority, and it is scheduled to be voted on in the House of Representatives today.  If passed, it will be much harder to stop upcoming free trade agreements, which increase corporate rights and make it harder to protect public health, communities, human rights, and the earth itself.

Go to Credo Action for the phone number for you to call your congressional representative.  Simply tell whoever answers that you urge your representative to vote “no” on Fast Track.

If you want to know more about this, see my blog on Fast Track to Hell, which spells out what’s so bad about the upcoming Trans Pacific Partnership, the first in a series of very bad agreements that don’t just deal with trade.  You can also watch the video presentation that I gave with Emanuel Sferios on Toxic Trade Agreements and the TPP.  Finally, the book that I wrote, Shaking the Gates of Hell,  is about the process of “corporate globalization,” in which transnational corporations write and promote these corporate bills of rights in their quest to consolidate global corporate rule.

There are many among the 1% who would benefit materially from increased corporate profits, but so many more among the general population who would be harmed.  Fortunately, more and more people are awakening to the extent of the damage being done by these misguided policies, and realizing that only “the power of the people” can stop them.  Even if Fast Track passes, the struggle will go on.  As the sign says, “The 1% has awakened a sleeping giant and filled us with great resolve.” Join us!

As I wrote in Fast Track to Hell:   “We don’t need to leave these decisions to government “leaders” who are blinded by allegiance to their corporate sponsors.  The fact is, we who can see what is at stake are the only ones who can stop this fast track to hell.  I trust that God and all the powers of the living earth are with us in this struggle.”

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A Corporate Coup

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flush the tpp

“The WTO, Corporate Globalization, and the TPP”
Presentation at Tomes Bookstore on Dec. 2, 2013

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is meeting this week in Bali, Indonesia, where anti-WTO demonstrators have taken over the streets.  On Tuesday, the first day of the talks, demonstrations were held around the world to mark the Global Day of Action Against Toxic Trade Agreements.

A particular focus for protestors here in the United States and in other Pacific Rim nations was the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a so-called “free-trade agreement” that would consolidate corporate power over member nations.  The TPP would be a vast expansion of corporate power.  It has been called “NAFTA on steroids.”  It has also been called “a corporate coup” and a “corporate power tool of the 1%.”

Why are the WTO, NAFTA, and free-trade agreements such as the TPP “toxic?”  Because they put trade (or rather, the free flow of capital) above all else, because they cover far more than trade, and because they give corporations the power to determine what laws a country can or cannot have.  They are vehicles through which corporations make and enforce rules for governments to follow.

Of course, all of this sounds bad, but abstract.  And the institutions we are talking about are so big and so powerful that it seems like there’s nothing we can do to slow things down or reverse course.  But that’s not true.

It is important to understand what is at stake and how corporate domination of governments and global institutions affect us negatively in so many ways.  That is one reason I wrote my book, Shaking the Gates of Hell:  Faith-Led Resistance to Corporate Globalization, which includes an overview of the global economic system and the institutions that dominate our world.

A chapter entitled “The Unholy Trinity:  The IMF, World Bank, and WTO” gives detailed examples of specific “trade” disputes and how the dispute process works to overturn laws created by governments.  This section, “The WTO: A Corporate Bill of Rights,” explains how corporations use trade agreements in their attempt to consolidate global corporate rule:

“Clearly, the United States and other nations see their interests as tied to corporate interests. As corporate power increases, however, the power of governments decreases, until governments, the lucky ones, end up riding on corporate coattails. But corporations, once they are truly globalized, have no loyalty at all, except to the bottom line. They are not even loyal to their “home” governments. They can even change nationalities at will.

“Though the rhetoric of the IMF and World Bank has been about development and raising the standard of living, the actual effects of these multilateral bureaucracies has been to integrate poor nations into a world economy dominated by global corporations and powerful nations. They have used structural adjustment policies (SAPS) to “pry open” the economies of developing nations, creating complete dependency.

“How can global corporations further pry open the U.S. economy and the economies of other industrialized nations? How can they finish what they started during the Reagan Revolution in the 1980s? How can they bypass the messiness of the democratic process altogether while gutting regulatory agencies and eliminating troublesome laws that interfere with corporate profits? How can they perpetuate the “smoke and mirrors” illusion that nation-states have power, while eliminating the very laws that governments use to protect the rights and well-being of their people? How can they privatize the potentially lucrative public-services sector, including publicly funded hospitals, schools, libraries, prisons, utilities, water services, and social services, and offer these and all other services up for sale? How can they ensure that wealthy, industrialized nations will ultimately be as dependent upon the global system that they dominate as are poor and indebted nations? How can they bring structural adjustment policies home? How can global corporations extend their power and consolidate their dominance over people, their governments, and the earth itself? The answer: they create trade agreements and global bureaucracies that convince governments to do this for them, institutions like NAFTA and the WTO, which essentially take the matter out of government hands.”

In spite of this direction that the institutional Powers are pushing, I’m quite hopeful that we the people will be successful in raising awareness, mobilizing opposition, and preventing the TPP from coming into being.  As the saying goes, we need to “flush the TPP.”

Fourteen years ago this month, I joined thousands in the streets of Seattle for nonviolent action and hundreds in King County Jail during the WTO meetings there.  The meetings ended in failure and have never really gotten back on track.  Since Seattle, global civil society has prevented other attempts to consolidate global corporate rule, and we can do it again.  That was another reason I wrote Shaking, to inspire hope and motivate action for healing and transformation.

After Seattle I wrote:  “It seemed clear to me then, as never before: no matter how entrenched are the Powers that seem to rule the world, they govern only through the will of the people. If the people withdraw their consent these ruling institutions will collapse like a house of cards. And I felt deeply grateful to the One who is `far above all rule and authority and power and dominion’ (Ephesians 1:21), the Creator of the universe in all its splendor, who is on the side of justice and love.”

“Another world is possible.”  This is the faith that motivates my life.

Agenda 21 vs. the TPP

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Stop TPP

A new wave of reaction to Agenda 21 threatens to confound the public and undermine efforts toward global cooperation on both environment and development.  Meanwhile, those who raise the alarm about Agenda 21, a non-binding agreement, are silent about negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a binding agreement that would grant corporations new rights to interfere with our democracy.   

Agenda 21

 I was part of the United Methodist delegation to Rio de Janeiro in 1992, during the historic United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, or “Earth Summit,” where Agenda 21 was signed.  The agreement was negotiated openly in advance, with input from governments, corporations, and civil society.  Its purpose was to suggest principles, policies, and guidelines that could help the nations of the world move cooperatively into the 21st century (hence the name) in ways that could both protect the earth and raise poor nations out of poverty.

 Agenda 21 is not a treaty, so it was not ratified by the Senate.  It does not have the force of law.  It is non-binding, to be enacted voluntarily as governments see fit.  Some jurisdictions in various countries, including the United States, have enacted policies based on  Agenda 21’s suggested principles, such as protecting biodiversity, controlling pollution,  reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the progression of global warming, combating poverty, strengthening the role of marginalized groups, etc.  Agenda 21does not infringe upon national, state, or local sovereignty.  It’s goal is not to abolish private property or take away our freedoms or create an “eco-dictatorship,” regardless of what Glen Beck or Fox News have to say.

 The TPP

Now let’s look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.  It is being negotiated secretly, behind closed doors.  The public does not have access to the draft, yet corporations have not only seen it but are helping to write it.  Portions of the document have been leaked, so we know that this so-called “free-trade agreement” deals with far more than trade.   If enacted, its reach will extend into every aspect of our lives. 

 Unlike Agenda 21, the TPP would take precedence over U.S. law, and would bind us far more than any treaty.   The enforcement mechanism of treaties is internal to each country, but the enforcement of trade agreements is external.  If our government refuses to change a federal, state, or local law that is ruled “illegal” under the TPP, fines or tariffs would be leveled against us.  The position of the U.S. government is that we will change our laws to comply with the terms of  trade agreements.  This has resulted in many of our democratically-enacted laws being overturned through World Trade Organization (WTO) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tribunals.

 The TPP incorporates the worst of the WTO and NAFTA, and expands corporate rule even further.  With the WTO, a corporation has to convince a government to file a dispute against (sue) another country.  With the TPP, as with NAFTA, a corporation can sue a country directly for lost profits, past, present, and future.  In other words, if people in a particular town rise up to prevent a corporation from building a power plant, the corporation can sue the federal government for profits they might have realized if the project had gone ahead.

The TPP not only threatens U.S. sovereignty, it places corporate profits above the democratic  process.  Why the silence on the TPP?  Why the alarmist rhetoric about Agenda 21?  I agree with Thom Hartmann’s analysis:  “It’s a sleight-of-hand technique to keep us focused on bogeymen, while the ranks of Texas oilmen, outsourcing CEOs, and Wall Street banksters carry out the true destruction of the United States of America: the pillaging of the Middle Class at home and the construction of a WTO-style one-world corporate government to promote unfettered capitalism and free trade everywhere on the planet.”

The major challenges facing humanity will require global cooperation, through open negotiation and the input of civil society.  It’s a big mistake to abandon our precious world to agreements like the TPP, a corporate bill of rights that would result in the consolidation of corporate rule.

 

The damage caused by free-trade agreements motivated me to write Shaking the Gates of Hell:  Faith-Led Resistance to Corporate Globalization, which includes an overview of the global economy, a description of its rule-making institutions (such as the WTO and NAFTA),  nonviolent resistance to global corporate empire, and globalization from below.

For more truth-telling about Agenda 21, see Thom Hartmann’s “Agenda 21: The Latest Sleight of Hand Trick by Corporate Elite” or the scholarly article on “Property Rights and Sustainability” by ethicist Donald Brown.

Find out more about the TPP and take action to Stop the TPP at Popular Resistance .  Find more resources at Public Citizen  or Flush the TPP. 

 

Amend the Constitution to Limit Corporate Power

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Corporations are not people 3

Tonight is the first 2013 meeting of our local Nevada County Move to Amend coalition.  We are part of a national coalition that is working to pass a constitutional amendment that would abolish corporate personhood and make clear that money is not the same as free speech.

Why get back to work on this issue? We’ve all got many other important things going on in our lives.  (I’ve got my grandchildren to play with, for instance.)

Passing a constitutional amendment  in order to make it possible for human beings to limit corporate power may be a long shot.  The concept of  corporate personhood seems abstract, not so easy to understand.  And we know that there will be huge opposition to such a movement, with large corporations spending millions on lawyers, lobbyists, and media campaigns.

Still, it’s worth a try.  Since the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, many people have become concerned about corporate domination of the political process, and they may get on board with an amendment to limit corporate power.  To me, such a constitutional amendment is the most direct path we have to challenging corporate rule and making possible a democracy of, by, and for the people instead of of, by, and for the corporations.

Read more that I have written on this topic in “Democracy is for People,” adapted from an article published last May in Response Magazine.   Our Nevada County Move to Amend is on FaceBook.  Find out more about the national campaign at the Move to Amend  website.

Corporate domination of culture, economy, and politics affects every issue of concern and everything that is of value in life.  Find out more and join in the effort to amend the constitution and limit corporate power.

Global Agreement from Hell

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Shaking photo

The Trans-Pacific Partnership:  

A Global Agreement from Hell:

In Seattle in 1999 and again in Cancun in 2003, I joined in nonviolent direct action to shut down the meetings of the World Trade Organization, one of the most powerful and anti-democratic global institutions this world has ever seen.  Public opposition has taken its toll on the WTO, but the US government is working around this problem by negotiating bilateral and multilateral “free-trade agreements” with various countries.

The latest of these is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a secretive system of rules for government to follow.  It masquerades as a trade agreement, but is actually a corporate bill of rights.  Of its twenty-six chapters, only two have to do with trade.  The TPP would give corporations more power over governments and continue the movement toward the global consolidation of corporate power.

I describe this top-down form of globalization in my book, Shaking the Gates of Hell:  Faith-Led Resistance to Corporate Globalization, and I join with others in proposing as the remedy a “people’s globalization” or “globalization from below.”  Such a remedy would require a widespread awakening of the earth’s people to the damage of the current global system and to the hope of transformation.

The TPP, like the WTO and NAFTA, would give corporations more power over governments by restricting the ability of member nations to enact domestic health, safety, environmental, or human rights laws that could infringe on corporate profits.  With the WTO, corporations must convince their home governments to file disputes against other countries, but the TPP (like NAFTA) would allow foreign corporations to directly file disputes against governments that have such laws, and to claim reimbursement for lost profits, past, present, and future.  The position of the US government, which initiates and promotes such agreements, is that we will change our laws in order to comply.

As Lori Wallach from Global Trade Watch explains in this video, “Leaked TPP Draft:  Corporate Dictatorship,” the TPP at present includes only nine Pacific countries, including the United States, which initiated this agreement, but it will be left open for other countries to join.  Once fully instituted, it could essentially replace the WTO, becoming a binding global agreement of corporate rules for governments to follow.

The text of the TPP is shrouded in secrecy.  While corporate leaders have access to negotiations and have helped to draft it, members of Congress, even those with security clearance, have not been allowed to see it.  Why?  In the words of US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, “In the past…, when the text was revealed, we couldn’t finish it. ” They “couldn’t finish it” because global civil society successfully organized against agreements such as the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in the WTO.  Trade negotiators don’t want us to have time to get organized against this one.

The negotiations are secret because the negotiators are aware that the TPP, like all bureaucracies, can only function with the consent of the people.  They want to consolidate their rule before we awaken to what is at stake.

There are many ways that we can respond to this underhanded attempt to push through a binding global agreement that will have such profound impacts on federal, state, and local governments.  First, find out more.  Watch this video with Lori Wallach, learn more and take action at Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. 

Need I say that this is a spiritual issue?  Everything we care about is at stake.  Consent to the current direction being taken by this idolatrous global system is spiritual death.  Spiritual awakening and organizing ourselves for nonviolent action is a direction toward transformation.

The TPP threatens to consolidate corporate power on a global level.  Now is the time for us to awaken to what is at stake, step fully into our humanity, and take responsibility for what is going on in our name and with our tax dollars.  The corporate domination of cultures, economies, and governments can only happen with the consent of the people.  Join with me in withdrawing your consent.  Keep current on these issues by following my blogs or by “Liking” the new FaceBook page for Shaking the Gates of Hell.  Don’t buy corporate rule.