A presenter speaks at rally to oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, May 7, 2014. (Photo: AFGE)

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement usurps federal, state and local authority, and functions as a global corporate coup.

Corporations aren’t people – otherwise, we’d be trying them for treason. If it were known that a handful of powerful men and women were meeting in secret to overthrow the authority of the US government and make this nation submissive to external domination, the NSA, CIA, FBI, US president, Congress and the military-industrial complex would declare them “terrorists of the year” and bomb them back into the Stone Age.

But corporations aren’t people. They enjoy superhuman status, and are awarded privileges and protections well beyond what ordinary citizens of the United States can expect. (The last time a corporation was shot dead in the streets by a police officer was – well, never.) Corporations are given preferential treatment by judges, laws, politicians, investigators, tax agencies, financial institutions and much of our consumer-capitalist society.

So, when corporations spend years in secret negotiations to set up a trade agreement that gives them the legal power to overrule federal, state and local laws, subjugating not only the United States, but also the rest of the world to their control, our Congress lines up to help them.

This is treason by another name. It’s called fast-track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Congress, on the whole, has not seen the secret, thousand-page text of the TPP. Yet, congressional members are curiously willing to eschew their right and responsibility to review this international trade treaty and fast-track the legislation without debate or revision. If they vote to fast-track the TPP, they are silencing the people and handing the nation over on a silver platter to corporate domination.

In addition to stating trade rules, the TPP also sets up a corporate-run international tribunal court whose legal task is to overrule federal, state and local laws that restrict trade or give one nation an “unfair advantage” over another. Don’t be fooled by the altruistic-sounding phrase: What this really means is that all labor, environmental, health and safety laws would be reduced to the lowest common denominator. Say hello to lead poisoning and sweatshops. Say goodbye to health benefits and living wages. Also, city zoning laws that keep industrial developments from lowering the value of your home can be gutted by this tribunal court. Factory farms and sludge fields can move in next door. Toxic plants can be located next to the schoolyard. Gone are the fracking bans and GMO-labeling laws we worked so hard to pass. One hundred and fifty years of labor history is being thrown in the gutter by the regressive nature of the TPP.

Also alarming is the possibility that TPP sections would allow venomous attacks on public assets like schools, water district utilities, parks, bridges, roads, public banks, buses and social programs. Regarded as awarding an “unfair advantage” to those enterprises via government support, the TPP would allow the feeding frenzy to privatize public assets to reach a new height. If the TPP is passed, it is only a matter of time before we, the people, own nothing and they, the private individuals and corporations, own everything.

And democracy? Say goodbye to 1,000 years of political evolution. Spit on the suffragettes. Flip off the civil rights movement. The TPP is a return to dictators and despots wearing the mask of transnational corporations.

A corporate coup is taking place, in secret and in silence. Our politicians are complicit. Those who vote yes on the TPP are signing the nation over to corporate rule. Those who vote yes on fast-track authority are reneging on their sworn oaths to protect this nation from all threats both foreign and domestic. Those who support the TPP are colluding with a dangerous transnational alliance that seeks dominance over our federal, state and local authority. Every citizen of conscience should resist this corporate coup. Dissent is not only patriotic; it is necessary to defend our nation.

Email this article or excerpts to your senators and representatives, to the White House and to all members of Congress and tell them that you consider collusion with the TPP and fast-track authorization to be treasonous behavior. Contact your friends, family members, business associates, local political leaders and lawyers, and spread the word. Learn more about how to stop the TPP at https://www.flushthetpp.org and use this online tool to call your elected officials: https://stopfasttrack.com.