Come one, come all! Step right up and buy your ticket for a ride on the splendiferous, phantasmagoric, supersonic, miraculous, “Trans-Pacific Partnership!”
TPP is not some sort of futuristic flying machine, but yet another global trade scam coming at us like a volcanic eruption straight out of hell. This thing is a “partnership” of, by and for global corporations similar to NAFTA, only much, much, much bigger and far more destructive both to the middle class and to our people’s sovereignty.
Negotiating in strict secrecy during the past seven years, a cabal of the Obama White House and corporate lobbyists are now ready to spring it on us, and Republican leaders intend to ram it into law before We the People can get a whiff of its anti-democratic stench.
Indeed, to perfume it, they’ve already begun a PR campaign touting TPP as the long-sought wonder cure for America’s downtrodden working class. For example, such odd-bedfellow boosters as Secretary of State John Kerry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce both exclaim that the 12-nation scheme will “support 650,000 new jobs.” Wow, really?
No. Glenn Kessler, who writes the Washington Post’s “Fact-Checker” column, dug into that number in January and found that it was incorrectly calculated, misleading and silly. In fact, he wrote, instead of TPP yielding 650,000 new jobs, “The correct number is zero.”
He also pointed out that even if 650,000 jobs were created, that’s not even a drop in the bucket, for it would increase U.S. employment by less than one-half of 1 percent.
Be alert, friends, for the TPP Gang will try to dazzle us with hokey numbers and neon lies while they steal our democratic rights and turn our future well-being over to global corporations. To get information and get involved, go to www.citizen.org/trade.
This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.
