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The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic
by Ellen Brown
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government. — Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution
A republican form of government is one in which power resides in elected officials representing the citizens, and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. In The Federalist Papers, James Madison defined a republic as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people . . . .”
On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers.
What’s Obama Up to, with His TPP & TTIP?
Eric Zuesse
The motivation behind U.S. President Barack Obama’s trans-Pacific trade-deal TPP, and his trans-Atlantic trade-deal TTIP — the motivation behind both of these enormous international trade-deals — is the same, and Democratic U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are correct: it is not at all progressive. It is instead to transfer political power away from the public in a democracy, and for that power to go instead to the international aristocracy (i.e., to go as far away from any national democracy as is even possible to go). This is to be done by switching the most fundamental thing of all: the global power-base itself. Instead of that power-base being democratic votes of the national publics, who elect their political representatives who determine the laws and regulations, that national democratic political system becomes instead the exact opposite: the global aristocratic stockholder votes of the international aristocracy who elect the corporate directors of international companies, who will, in their turn, then be selecting the members to the international-trade-panels which, in TPP and TTIP, will, in their turn, be determining the rules and enforcements regarding especially workers’ rights, product-safety, and the environment.
Is the U.S. a Force for Good in the World?
Eric Zuesse
First of all, in terms of popularity worldwide, the U.S. is a mixed picture. A Gallup International poll of 65 countries, issued on 30 December 2013, found that:
“The US was the overwhelming choice (24% of respondents) for the country that represents the greatest threat to peace in the world today. This was followed by Pakistan (8%), China (6%), North Korea, Israel and Iran (5%). Respondents in Russia (54%), China (49%) and Bosnia (49%) were the most fearful of the US as a threat.”
(Some of the reasons why America is considered, by people throughout the world, to be the biggest threat to peace, will be documented below.)
Saudis End Operation Decisive Storm: War Continues
by Stephen Lendman
On Wednesday, things in Yemen changed but stayed the same. Saudi rhetoric belies its policy.
It announced Operation Restoring Hope replacing Decisive Storm. US-planned and orchestrated/Saudi-led terror bombing offered Yemenis none. Nor does continued US-ordered war.
Washington's policy remains hardline. It's unchanged. It includes:
- regaining unchallenged control over its former client state;
- crushing Houthi resistance;
- restoring US-installed/Houthi ousted illegitimate president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to power serving Western interests at the expense of his people; or
- another puppet leader operating the same way.
Humanitarian Crisis Conditions in Yemen
by Stephen Lendman
Conditions were dire before Saudi terror-bombing began. Yemen is the region's poorest country.
Half the population is food insecure in normal times. Yemenis lack other essentials to life.
Political stability is impossible without addressing humanitarian issues responsibly.
Before Saudi aggression began, UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen Ould Cheikh Ahmed said over 10 million Yemenis need food aid.
Half of them face acute food shortages. Millions of children face malnutrition. Tens of thousands may die.
Over a third of a million Yemenis were displaced before Saudi-led terror-bombing began.
Libertarians’ Civil War Over Ukraine
Eric Zuesse
On the one hand, Andrei Illarionov of the Koch Brothers’ libertarian Cato Institute says that the first among "the crimes that have been committed or are being committed by the Kremlin — stealing Crimea” can be rectified only by rejecting "Russia’s aggression in Crimea,” which means to replace the current Russian government by "a free democratic state with the rule of law”: i.e., overthrowing it in order to establish that very thing, "a free democratic state with the rule of law.” He says that, "The issue of Crimea’s jurisdiction is within the competence of only one subject of international law — the owner of that territory, namely Ukraine. Only this subject, and no one else, has necessary legal rights to change this territory’s jurisdiction.” And, since Ukraine did not sell Crimea to Russia, Russia “stole” it from Ukraine. He sees the issue of Crimea as being not an issue of people, but of land: the land-area of Crimea, which Russia “stole” from Ukraine — that Russia stole the land and everything in it and under it and on it, including its residents.
New Breakaway Republic Is Announced in Ukraine to Join Donetsk and Luhansk Republics
Eric Zuesse
A group of residents in the region of Odessa, one of Ukraine’s largest cities, is trying to break away from the Ukrainian government that was formed after the coup in Kiev in February 2014.
As the first anniversary approaches of the 2 May 2014 massacre by U.S.-backed Ukrainian Government thugs against pamphleteers in Odessa’s Trade Unions Building, who had opposed the 22 February 2014 U.S. coup in Ukraine, there has been forming in Odessa a movement for complete independence from the U.S.-coup-imposed Ukrainian regime. Ukraine's U.S.-imposed regime’s response is to crush this incipient movement before word of its existence can even get out to the rest of the world.
War: It's Human Nature only if Collective Suicide is Natural
By David Swanson
Thank you for having me here. I know a lot of people have been involved in planning this event. Thank you!
I'm going to try this morning to address the question of how we can best talk our fellow human beings out of one of the primary myths that allows war to continue. And in a second speech later today I'm going to turn more to the question of activism and building a peaceful world.
I mailed a box of my books here, and I had to mail another one because the first box arrived undamaged except that all of the books were missing. Although I don't know who stole the books, Mary Hanna recommended I inform you that the message I bring you was so threatening that the books were taken, and the empty box delivered, by a bunch of -- and I quote -- Weannie-heads!
Neocon Think Tank Proposes US Proxy Army to Control Syria
by Stephen Lendman
The Atlantic Council is a hawkish right-wing think tank. Its directors include a rogue's gallery of high-level US war criminals.
It's notion of "working together to secure the future" is waging endless preemptive wars of aggression.
Its Distinguished International Leadership Awards go to former US and other Western government and military officials for raping and plundering one country after another.
It was founded in 1961 to support NATO's killing machine. It's one of many similar groups in America threatening world peace and stability.
Its solution for ending Obama's war on Syria is escalated war. It proposes what it calls aSyrian National Stabilization Force (SNSF ) - code language for US-controlled conquering and occupying army.
US and Saudi Aggressors Want Yemeni Victims to Halt Conflict
by Stephen Lendman
They want unconditional surrender. They want what they won't get.
Blaming victims is one of Washington's dirtiest games. Naked aggression is called liberation. Humanitarian intervention is claimed.
Mass slaughter and destruction are considered democracy-building measures. Plundering countries for profit is called economic development.
Yemen is Obama's latest atrocity. How many more countries will he rape - turn to rubble, mass slaughter defenseless civilians, and create appalling humanitarian crisis conditions? Saudi-led terror bombing continues massacring defenseless noncombatant men, women and children in cold blood.
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