An effort to extend the time between the recently learned and soon forgotten
Barack Obama has an excellent opportunity to make his mark, and to remove any ambiguity about his sympathies. He has been pushing (with entirely uncharacteristic fervor) a bill known as the Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP. Despite a pronounced lack of enthusiasm from many members of the Democratic Party, Obama has been burning political capital in an effort to get this bill approved, ideally through some sort of 'fast track' process that will minimize opportunities for the public to learn the details. If Obama can do it then will prove to the world that he is truly a pro-business politician. The "pro" in "pro-business" should in this case be interpreted carefully: consider that in the United States "pro-life" actually means little other than "antiabortion". In the context of the TPP then "pro-business" means anti-environment, anti-labor, and anti-egalitarian. The details of the bill are of course difficult to pin down since the text of the agreement has been kept secret from everyone other than the business leaders who helped devise it. The leaks that have come out so far, however, are pretty alarming.
The bill proposes, for example, tribunals that will allow corporations to sue governments over loss of alleged future profits due to regulations. Rules like these in NAFTA have provided the mechanism through which the power of nations to control pollution within their borders has been weakened/evaded, and the TPP proposes to go even further. As another example of the TPP's direction, Internet Service Providers could under the agreement be forced to monitor the traffic of the people they serve . This concession is proposed in the context of controlling copyrighted material, but I am not excited about institutionalizing this sort of Internet snooping. I won't list any of the other compromises this bill proposes, even though there are many, but they seem to benefit big business over individuals with perfect uniformity. If you'd like to know more then there is plenty of information available on the web: some sites worth visiting include expose the TTP, or you can go to the source from WikiLeaks. Whatever else happens, whether you support or oppose this bill in the end, the idea that the bill should be passed without public review is deeply troubling. While Obama may be seeking to make his mark for history, my recommendation is that we all take the time to learn the details of this proposal first, and then perhaps ask Mr. Obama to make his mark in some other way.