8 ms·

> undermines democracy Sorry which democracy? If these talks and their outcomes are already a secret (without discussing matters of national security), then th

by cies 11y ago

> undermines democracy Sorry which democracy? If these talks and their outcomes are already a secret (without discussing matters of national security), then this is one more reason for me not to consider the EU nor the US a democracy. The people have just a tiny fraction of power compared to the corps. Let's just be fair and teach the next generations that our countries have been hijacked by corps+lobbyists, and that democracy is just a word used to make people accept their totalitarian power.

bad_user 11y ago
I'm sure you have a point, but I just don't see it.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  I see the parent's point as being we need to stop referring to [plutocratic] oligarchies as democracies. If you allow the rich to establish treaties that prevent nations from exercising sovereign power to bring those same rich people in to line, and you do it in private preventing the citizens/subjects from even knowing the details of the regime you intend to impose then you're operating well outside anything that can be described as democratic. TTIP seemingly intends to go further still, not only preventing nations from exercising sovereign powers against corporations but allowing the corporations (which are really proxies for the plutocrats) to exercise equivalent powers over those nations. We've seen these sorts of powers in use by tobacco companies suing countries for trying to improve citizens health. It's fantastic capitalism - profit above environment, profit above health, profit above morality, profit for the few against rights and freedoms of the many.
  - blumkvist 11y ago
    1) A true democracy has never existed. The needle is pushed by a tiny percentage of all the people. Such is the nature of humans. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up for a debate. Do you really want that Walmart cashier lady's take on policy? There are counter arguments as well of course, but that's not the main point of this thread. 2) >It's fantastic capitalism - profit above environment, profit above health, profit above morality, profit for the few against rights and freedoms of the many. This statement shows that you have 0 understanding of capitalism in regards to society. Capitalism is not about selfishness. It is about self-interest. For example, it is not in the long term self-interest of energy companies that we are experiencing global warming and they know it, and despite what you think they are working on fixing that. It's just not so simple to shift. 3) Having said that, I for one, don't want someone who has such strong feelings about things he understands so little about, to have a say in policy making. He can be swayed so easy by emotions and articles in the NYT and form an opinion about complicated problems he has no clue about. But representative democracy is great, right?
    - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
      >Do you really want that Walmart cashier lady's take on policy? // Indeed, democracy is flawed - IMO it's the least worst system we have a chance of implementing effectively and with relative stability. I may not want a particular group's opinions but I'm prepared to accept that system over others. As for "0 understanding of capitalism in regards to society" - I'm using capitalism as a short form for "Western capitalism" which is epitomised by things which aren't truly "capitalism" per se. Semantic niceties aside energy companies in my country regularly act against their long term interest as do most businesses. Indeed they usually only act in a way that might be termed moral to fulfil legal obligations and then they tend to find a way to subvert their obligations. But then as the rhetoric here often reminds us "companies are there solely to make profit", shareholders complain if they do anything beyond their obligations. Energy companies are looking at their own goals and not societies needs. As for 3 ... I'll confess now I didn't read the NYT article [I just assumed it was the same content as has been doing the rounds in the last couple of months - very similar to what's happening with TPP], I've been following TTIP since I learnt about it from ex-colleagues in the IPR community about 18 months ago. 38degrees started their campaign about 14 months ago IIRC. I'm the first to admit I'm ill informed on it, but that's almost the whole point - negotiations and details of the direction and end goal are hidden and actively kept secret even from representatives. There's no way for me to be completely informed. Representative democracy can't work if the representatives aren't even allowed to access the knowledge needed to make decisions for the people and it fails to be democratic when the people aren't able to see if those representatives are acting in their own interest or in the interests of the people they deign to represent.
    - task_queue 11y ago
      I'm the oil company that will continue to sell oil until wells pump out dust, destroying the environment in the interim, but its okay because we've diversified and have many contingency plans. Have you seen our catalog of contaminate filters for your home's closed air filtration system? If you subscribe now, you can have access to our Above The Clouds solar farm. Yields on surface farms have decreased considerably as the out of control heating of the atmosphere blocks out the sun.
  - cies 11y ago
    Thanks for clearing it up. I was indeed trying to make that point.
crdoconnor 11y ago
>Let's just be fair and teach the next generations that our countries have been hijacked by corps+lobbyists, and that democracy is just a word used to make people accept their totalitarian power. You can fight them, you know.
- enlightenedfool 11y ago
  Inherent to democracy is the fact that the fighting "you" is minority and it keeps shrinking. Minority loses. But all good. Hopefully in a few centuries humanity will see bloody revolutions
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    There are fewer lobbyists than people. They rely upon the masses being divided and unwilling to recognize their own power.
- DyslexicAtheist 11y ago
  I have been wondering why all this madness hasn't resulted in more violent uprisings by ideologically radicalised groups or individuals. History in Europe has seen lesser triggers to call for (or act out) the expulsion of similar individuals like Karel de Gucht. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction If anything, the high unemployment in the EU over the past decade would have been a fertile breeding ground for such ideas. I'd say we're doing pretty well so far as a society by not engaging in more drastic measures given how much our rights are trampled on.
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    The far right and the far left are both growing in Europe. We aren't as violent as we used to be in the 1970s-80s (violent crime has dropped precipitously, for instance). Perhaps because we don't use leaded petrol any more.
    - lumberjack 11y ago
joeyspn 11y ago
Exactly, we live in a de facto Corporatocracy, and this treaty is the biggest proof that democracy was pushed into the background long time ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
- javert 11y ago
  No, we really don't. We live in a mixed economy, which means freedom mixed with government controls, which always means there are government-chosen winners and losers. It's what the people want, though. It's what we're taught is good in school; it's what we believe in.
  - wyago 11y ago
    That's not really relevant to joeyspn's statement at all. He's not talking about an economic system, he's talking about a political system. While political systems influence economic systems, they don't have a one to one relationship. In the case of the US, we have a corporatocracy which maintains the current mixed economy.
    - javert 11y ago
      "Corporatocracy" cannot be an appropriate name for a system where most corporations are the victim of a few corporations that have governmental powers. So, "corporatocracy" is not a valid word. It would be like calling a dictatorship a "manocracy." On the subject of political vs. economic systems: a specific political system implies a specific economic system, and vice versa, so there isn't the distinction here that you think.
MarcusVorenus 11y ago
Sound like sour grapes and No True Scotsman to me. The president, who is leading negotiations, was elected democratically, and Congress, who decides whether this treaty becomes law or not, was also elected democratically. If the people dislike how the government is doing things they have only themselves to blame for electing these representatives. To be honest I don't believe anybody really cares about the ideals of democracy. If the same secrecy was being used to push legislation you supported you wouldn't be whining at all, you would probably be defending it instead because you would rationalize that passing the law is more important than the method used to pass it.
- calibraxis 11y ago
  That's not democracy. That's doublespeak. The US's "Founding Fathers" hated democracy and stressed it was a republic. Those slaveowners wanted to protect minorities against majority rule — the wealthy minority. (Obviously they didn't mean African Americans and women.) Later politicians coopted the term "democracy", as marketing. One source to learn more is Graeber's "The Democracy Project". (http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/democracy-what-is-it-good-for-david-graeber-and-gar-alperovitz http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/democracy-what-is-it-good-...) Pushing a button every few years for your new corporate-sponsored king isn't meaningful democratic participation.
  - MarcusVorenus 11y ago
    Obama is a union-sponsored king actually, so it's all good I guess.
    - lumberjack 11y ago
      Neither Obama nor Clinton are sponsored by unions. Their major sponsors are Wall St, universities, SV and Hollywood, i.e. typical wealthy democrats. http://www.opensecrets.org/PRES08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638 http://www.opensecrets.org/PRES08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638 Maybe you were thinking about Bernie Sanders?
      - 11y ago
javert 11y ago
Well, the US is not supposed to be a democracy, it's supposed to be a constitutional republic. Neither the people nor corporations are supposed to have any power. "Power," here, means the ability to weild force against others. The founding ideal of the US was that nobody could do that; in other words, it was supposed to be a system of freedom, as opposed to coercion.
- cies 11y ago
  I know for a fact that schools teach children, both in the US and in the EU, that they live in a democracy and should be happy with that. I was not trying to hint on what it is supposed to be.
  - javert 11y ago
    Yes, they do. Which serves to illustrate that we need separation of education and state, for the same reasons that we need separation of church and state.
x5n1 11y ago
> hijacked by corps+lobbyists corps+lobbyists+owners of capital(wealthy)
- cies 11y ago
  I stand corrected :)

by cies 11y ago

bad_user 11y ago

I'm sure you have a point, but I just don't see it.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
I see the parent's point as being we need to stop referring to [plutocratic] oligarchies as democracies. If you allow the rich to establish treaties that prevent nations from exercising sovereign power to bring those same rich people in to line, and you do it in private preventing the citizens/subjects from even knowing the details of the regime you intend to impose then you're operating well outside anything that can be described as democratic. TTIP seemingly intends to go further still, not only preventing nations from exercising sovereign powers against corporations but allowing the corporations (which are really proxies for the plutocrats) to exercise equivalent powers over those nations. We've seen these sorts of powers in use by tobacco companies suing countries for trying to improve citizens health. It's fantastic capitalism - profit above environment, profit above health, profit above morality, profit for the few against rights and freedoms of the many.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  1) A true democracy has never existed. The needle is pushed by a tiny percentage of all the people. Such is the nature of humans. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up for a debate. Do you really want that Walmart cashier lady's take on policy? There are counter arguments as well of course, but that's not the main point of this thread. 2) >It's fantastic capitalism - profit above environment, profit above health, profit above morality, profit for the few against rights and freedoms of the many. This statement shows that you have 0 understanding of capitalism in regards to society. Capitalism is not about selfishness. It is about self-interest. For example, it is not in the long term self-interest of energy companies that we are experiencing global warming and they know it, and despite what you think they are working on fixing that. It's just not so simple to shift. 3) Having said that, I for one, don't want someone who has such strong feelings about things he understands so little about, to have a say in policy making. He can be swayed so easy by emotions and articles in the NYT and form an opinion about complicated problems he has no clue about. But representative democracy is great, right?
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    >Do you really want that Walmart cashier lady's take on policy? // Indeed, democracy is flawed - IMO it's the least worst system we have a chance of implementing effectively and with relative stability. I may not want a particular group's opinions but I'm prepared to accept that system over others. As for "0 understanding of capitalism in regards to society" - I'm using capitalism as a short form for "Western capitalism" which is epitomised by things which aren't truly "capitalism" per se. Semantic niceties aside energy companies in my country regularly act against their long term interest as do most businesses. Indeed they usually only act in a way that might be termed moral to fulfil legal obligations and then they tend to find a way to subvert their obligations. But then as the rhetoric here often reminds us "companies are there solely to make profit", shareholders complain if they do anything beyond their obligations. Energy companies are looking at their own goals and not societies needs. As for 3 ... I'll confess now I didn't read the NYT article [I just assumed it was the same content as has been doing the rounds in the last couple of months - very similar to what's happening with TPP], I've been following TTIP since I learnt about it from ex-colleagues in the IPR community about 18 months ago. 38degrees started their campaign about 14 months ago IIRC. I'm the first to admit I'm ill informed on it, but that's almost the whole point - negotiations and details of the direction and end goal are hidden and actively kept secret even from representatives. There's no way for me to be completely informed. Representative democracy can't work if the representatives aren't even allowed to access the knowledge needed to make decisions for the people and it fails to be democratic when the people aren't able to see if those representatives are acting in their own interest or in the interests of the people they deign to represent.
  - task_queue 11y ago
    I'm the oil company that will continue to sell oil until wells pump out dust, destroying the environment in the interim, but its okay because we've diversified and have many contingency plans. Have you seen our catalog of contaminate filters for your home's closed air filtration system? If you subscribe now, you can have access to our Above The Clouds solar farm. Yields on surface farms have decreased considerably as the out of control heating of the atmosphere blocks out the sun.
- cies 11y ago
  Thanks for clearing it up. I was indeed trying to make that point.

crdoconnor 11y ago

>Let's just be fair and teach the next generations that our countries have been hijacked by corps+lobbyists, and that democracy is just a word used to make people accept their totalitarian power. You can fight them, you know.

enlightenedfool 11y ago
Inherent to democracy is the fact that the fighting "you" is minority and it keeps shrinking. Minority loses. But all good. Hopefully in a few centuries humanity will see bloody revolutions
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  There are fewer lobbyists than people. They rely upon the masses being divided and unwilling to recognize their own power.
DyslexicAtheist 11y ago
I have been wondering why all this madness hasn't resulted in more violent uprisings by ideologically radicalised groups or individuals. History in Europe has seen lesser triggers to call for (or act out) the expulsion of similar individuals like Karel de Gucht. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction If anything, the high unemployment in the EU over the past decade would have been a fertile breeding ground for such ideas. I'd say we're doing pretty well so far as a society by not engaging in more drastic measures given how much our rights are trampled on.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  The far right and the far left are both growing in Europe. We aren't as violent as we used to be in the 1970s-80s (violent crime has dropped precipitously, for instance). Perhaps because we don't use leaded petrol any more.
  - lumberjack 11y ago

joeyspn 11y ago

Exactly, we live in a de facto Corporatocracy, and this treaty is the biggest proof that democracy was pushed into the background long time ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy

javert 11y ago
No, we really don't. We live in a mixed economy, which means freedom mixed with government controls, which always means there are government-chosen winners and losers. It's what the people want, though. It's what we're taught is good in school; it's what we believe in.
- wyago 11y ago
  That's not really relevant to joeyspn's statement at all. He's not talking about an economic system, he's talking about a political system. While political systems influence economic systems, they don't have a one to one relationship. In the case of the US, we have a corporatocracy which maintains the current mixed economy.
  - javert 11y ago
    "Corporatocracy" cannot be an appropriate name for a system where most corporations are the victim of a few corporations that have governmental powers. So, "corporatocracy" is not a valid word. It would be like calling a dictatorship a "manocracy." On the subject of political vs. economic systems: a specific political system implies a specific economic system, and vice versa, so there isn't the distinction here that you think.

MarcusVorenus 11y ago

Sound like sour grapes and No True Scotsman to me. The president, who is leading negotiations, was elected democratically, and Congress, who decides whether this treaty becomes law or not, was also elected democratically. If the people dislike how the government is doing things they have only themselves to blame for electing these representatives. To be honest I don't believe anybody really cares about the ideals of democracy. If the same secrecy was being used to push legislation you supported you wouldn't be whining at all, you would probably be defending it instead because you would rationalize that passing the law is more important than the method used to pass it.

calibraxis 11y ago
That's not democracy. That's doublespeak. The US's "Founding Fathers" hated democracy and stressed it was a republic. Those slaveowners wanted to protect minorities against majority rule — the wealthy minority. (Obviously they didn't mean African Americans and women.) Later politicians coopted the term "democracy", as marketing. One source to learn more is Graeber's "The Democracy Project". (http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/democracy-what-is-it-good-for-david-graeber-and-gar-alperovitz http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/democracy-what-is-it-good-...) Pushing a button every few years for your new corporate-sponsored king isn't meaningful democratic participation.
- MarcusVorenus 11y ago
  Obama is a union-sponsored king actually, so it's all good I guess.
  - lumberjack 11y ago
    Neither Obama nor Clinton are sponsored by unions. Their major sponsors are Wall St, universities, SV and Hollywood, i.e. typical wealthy democrats. http://www.opensecrets.org/PRES08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638 http://www.opensecrets.org/PRES08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638 Maybe you were thinking about Bernie Sanders?
    - 11y ago

javert 11y ago

Well, the US is not supposed to be a democracy, it's supposed to be a constitutional republic. Neither the people nor corporations are supposed to have any power. "Power," here, means the ability to weild force against others. The founding ideal of the US was that nobody could do that; in other words, it was supposed to be a system of freedom, as opposed to coercion.

cies 11y ago
I know for a fact that schools teach children, both in the US and in the EU, that they live in a democracy and should be happy with that. I was not trying to hint on what it is supposed to be.
- javert 11y ago
  Yes, they do. Which serves to illustrate that we need separation of education and state, for the same reasons that we need separation of church and state.

x5n1 11y ago

> hijacked by corps+lobbyists corps+lobbyists+owners of capital(wealthy)

cies 11y ago
I stand corrected :)