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No More NAFTAs! 20 Years is Enough!

“NAFTA on Steroids”

LA Progressive - Mike Chickey

(Two Takes)

1) Inter-Continental Day of Action against the TPP & Corporate Globalization

2) Constituents Opposing TPP Fast Track Locked Out of Congressman Becerra’s Office

(1)

Inter-Continental Day of Action against the TPP & Corporate Globalization
Friday, January 31, 2014

January 2014 marks the twenty-year anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a pact that has had devastating consequences for working families, small farmers, indigenous peoples, small business and the environment in all three countries and beyond.  The pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been described as “NAFTA on Steroids.”  Four years into the TPP negotiations, this new corporate power grab threatens to:

 
    - Destroy livelihoods and accelerate the global race to the bottom in wages and working conditions
 
    - Further commodify agriculture, trample food sovereignty, hurt small farmers and contribute to forced migration
 
    - Enable new corporate attacks on democratically-enacted environmental and consumer protections
 
    - Undermine global economic stability by prohibiting effective regulation of financial markets
 
    - Reduce access to life-saving generic medications, increase the costs of prescriptions, and restrict freedom on the Internet

The harm that NAFTA has already cost our communities, and the new threats that the TPP poses, must be both acknowledged and resisted.  We also need to spread the word that since NAFTA, when people have come together across issue areas and across geographic borders, we have defeated similar corporate power grabs like the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), the Millennial Round of the World Trade Organization, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). We will do so again with the TPP.

We are calling on you to attend, and ideally help organize, a demonstration against NAFTA and the TPP in your community.  An international march is already planned for Mexico City, and people are already beginning to organize actions in other cities. In the meantime…

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     Click Here to Receive Updates on the Day of Action (and personally endorse the call to action if interested)

     Click Here to Volunteer to Organize an Action in Your Community (and be listed as a point of contact)

     Click Here to List Your Organization as Endorsing the Call to Action (for organizational representatives only)

For more info, email January31@citizenstrade.org.

Flush the TPP endorsed this day of action. If you need assistance in planning an action near you, contact Cassidy at StopFastTrack@FlushtheTPP.org.
___________________________

(2)

Constituents Opposing TPP Fast Track Locked Out of Congressman Becerra’s Office

By Lauren Steiner
LA Progressive
January 16, 2014

Photo: Mike Chickey

On Thursday, January 9, about 40 people held a rally outside the LA district office of Congressman Xavier Becerra to protest his refusal to sign a letter pledging to vote against fast tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP,) referred to as NAFTA on steroids and a global corporate power grab. 151 Democrats, three-quarters of House Democrats, and 23 Republicans have signed this letter.

I went to the Congressman’s office an hour before the protest to tell them that we were coming but that we had no intention of storming the office and putting them on the spot. I said we had written a cute skit in which we outsource the Congressman’s office. The premise is if the TPP passes, we won’t need Congress, because corporate written laws in the TPP would trump that of any government.

I asked if someone could come out and watch the skit, give us a statement by the Congressman about why he refused to sign the letter and then meet with constituents. The constituent representative Gayle Greenberg had to keep going back to the director of the district office to ask what she could do. She finally said she couldn’t issue a statement. That had to come out of the press secretary in DC. She couldn’t meet with constituents, because we didn’t make an appointment. But she could watch our protest as long as we didn’t film her.

What ended up happening was quite different. Greenberg came out and told us she was not going to watch the skit after all. And afterwards, when constituents tried to go into the office to make an appointment, they were locked out by the private security guard who works for the Chamber of Commerce. For some reason, Congressman Becerra decided to locate his office in the Chamber of Commerce building. When constituents questioned this, the security guard called the LAPD who told us she needed to ask the Chamber of Commerce if we could come in and speak to the Congressman’s staff. The LAPD then proceded to act as spokespeople for the staff, who refused to even come out and speak to us directly.

What is noteworthy is that everyday the Congressman and his staff can develop personal relationships with Chamber employees as they see them in the halls, in the restrooms, in their respective offices. But constituents have no such access. And when they seek to address the Congressman’s staff, they are locked out and told they have to contact Washington. Well, as I say in the video, the 99% do not have the money to fly to Washington to lobby the Congressman when they have an issue the way the Chamber and associated corporations can.

The upshot of the day was a constituent David Lara calling Gayle Greenberg on his cell phone from outside the office to make an appointment. He was told that she was “in a meeting” and would call him back. Seven days later, he is still waiting for that call.

Meanwhile Tom Donahue, President of the US Chamber of Commerce has stated that “The TPA (fast track) is the Chamber’s top trade priority before Congress in 2014.” So whose message is Becerra getting, the Chamber’s, representing the largest multi-national corporations, or that of the 99%?

Our skit “Outsourcing Xavier Becerra.”
Watch video here

Video of our protest and what happened when constituents tried to make an appointment to meet with their Congressman’s representative.
Watch video here

The next day, Lisa Kassner, who has written about the TPP for the LA Progressive, tried to get some answers from Becerra’s press secretary James Gleeson. He responded to six specific questions by sending an article from Inside U.S. Trade with a highlighted quote from Becerra:

Becerra (D-CA) told Inside U.S. Trade after the meeting that he would vote against the Baucus-Camp-Hatch bill and that he is among the House Democrats who have been working with Levin on an alternative fast-track proposal. “I’m supportive of discussing and getting to a point of having a trade negotiating authority law, but this doesn’t do it,” he said, referring to the Baucus-Camp-Hatch bill.

When Kassner pressed Gleeson for answers to the other questions about the Congressman’s reaction to the skit and the fact that constituents were locked out of his office by the Chamber of Commerce, the press secretary said, “No comment.”

Regarding the questions on the Congressman’s thoughts about the investor state dispute resolution clause being bad for democracy and the TPP threatening internet freedom, regulation of fracking, GMOs and other environmental and food safety issues, Buy America provisions and availability of low cost drugs, the press secretary said he would have to get back to Kassner. Two days later, she has still not heard from him.

If you would like to contact Representative Becerra as well as any of the other US Congress members who have not pledged to vote against fast tracking the TPP, please go to this site for more information.