Global rebellion
In these times where the whole planet is interconnecting itself, it seems ludicrous that a handful of nations would gang up economically at the expense of the rest of the world. Perhaps all countries not participating in this TPP economical power grab could boycott absolutely all products from these misguided nations that are about to sign this abomination of a treaty? Do you hear me Vlad? China? Let these dinosaurs procreate with themselves. We all know what incest does to an organism.
Despite claims from politicians and their corporate backers, the latest research on the TPP says it’s a job killer.
Source: TPP Trade Deal Will Cost US 448,000 Jobs, SayResearchers
Derrick Broze
January 22, 2016
A new analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) international trade deal has found claims of increased jobs are likely exaggerated.
United States — One of the major purported selling points for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a supposed increase in new jobs as a result of the controversial trade deal. The deal involves 12 nations, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia and more. However, two recent economic reports have contradicted the claims that jobs will increase. They have shown that, more than likely, the deal will lead to a loss of jobs.
First there was a World Bank report that predicted that TPP would produce negligible boosts to the economies of the U.S., Australia, and Canada. TechDirt writes:
“So according to the World Bank’s figures, the U.S. will gain an extra 0.04% GDP per year on average, as a result of TPP; Australia an extra 0.07% annually, and Canada a boost of 0.12% per year.”
This study was followed up by a review from Jerome Capaldo and Alex Izurieta at Tufts University. In a study titled “Trading Down: Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,” Capaldo and Izurieta claim their study uses a more realistic model than past analyses. Specifically, the researchers state that their model incorporates effects on employment that were previously excluded from TPP calculations.
Their study found that economic growth is likely to be limited — and negative — for some countries, including the United States. The researchers also found the TPP would probably lead to increased unemployment and inequality. Capaldo and Izurieta explained:
“The standard model assumes full employment and invariant income distribution, ruling out the main risks of trade and financial liberalization. Subject to these assumptions, it finds positive effects on growth. An important question, therefore, is how this conclusion changes if those assumptions are dropped.”
In the paper, the two researchers state that changes in GDP growth are “mostly projected to be negligible.” After using two sets of growth figures, ten-year measurements, and annual averages, they concluded the TPP “appears to only marginally change competitiveness among participating countries. Most gains are therefore obtained at the expense of non-TPP countries.”
The fact that any gains — however negligible — will come at the cost of non-TPP countries should be a warning to all nations of the world, especially those who do not stand to benefit from the agreement. Concerning predictions of actual job losses or gains, the researchers write, “TPP would lead to employment losses in all countries, with a total of 771,000 lost jobs. The United States would be the hardest hit, with a loss of 448,000 jobs.”
Finally, the researchers draw harrowing conclusions about the end result of the TPP.
“Globally, the TPP favors competition on labor costs and remuneration of capital. Depending on the policy choices in non-TPP countries, this may accelerate the global race to the bottom, increasing downward pressure on labor incomes in a quest for ever more elusive trade gains.”
This latest analysis of TPP job claims is even more dismal than a February 2015 analysis by the Washington Post, which revealed the U.S. government’s numbers on expected job increases from the TPP are not factually correct. The Post’s Fact Checker examined several quotes from government officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Both Kerry and Vilsack claimed the international trade agreement would create 650,000 new jobs. However, these numbers do not take into account income gains and changing wages. According to the government’s own sources, imports and exports would increase by the same amount — resulting in a net number of zero new jobs.
The TPP has faced criticism for several years, not least because it has been negotiated in secret with overwhelming influence from multinational corporations. In late June 2015, President Obama signed into law the so-called “fast-track” bill, which set the stage for approval of the TPP. “Fast-track” limits Congress’ ability to alter the provisions of the trade deal, and only allows a vote of yes or no. The final terms of the deal were agreed upon in October 2015, and the full text of the agreement was released in November. The earliest Obama can sign the deal is February 4, 2016.
Following the release of the text of the TPP, journalist James Corbett released an excellent report examining the effects of the proposal. Corbett concludes that the most egregious portions relate to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) Mechanism, intellectual property, and food safety standards.
According to the report, ISDS will give corporations loopholes to escape accountability and empower international bodies, overriding the national sovereignty of signing nations. Under ISDS, foreign corporations would be allowed to appeal legal decisions to international tribunals, rather than face domestic courts. Critics fear this could lead to a loss of sovereignty and the enrichment of transnational corporations.
In late 2015, Anti-Media reported the TPP might not be voted on until after the 2016 presidential elections, or possibly into the next presidential term, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In an interview with the Washington Post, McConnell said he does not support the idea of voting on the TPP before the election. “It certainly shouldn’t come before the election. I don’t think so, and I have some serious problems with what I think it is,” he said. “But I think the president would be making a big mistake to try to have that voted on during the election. There’s significant pushback all over the place.”
“We will continue working with Congressional leaders to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership as soon as possible next year,” Brandi Hoffine, a White House spokeswoman, told the Post on Thursday. On Friday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters, “Our view is that it is possible for Congress to carefully consider the details of this agreement and to review all the benefits associated with this agreement … without kicking the vote all the way to the lame-duck period.”
Recently, the Electronic Frontier Foundation also released a report on the dangers of the TPP. EFF writes:
“Everything in the TPP that increases corporate rights and interests is binding, whereas every provision that is meant to protect the public interest is non-binding and is susceptible to get bulldozed by efforts to protect corporations.”
The EFF’s report offers “a list of communities who were excluded from the TPP deliberation process,” and examples of “the main ways that the TPP’s copyright and digital policy provisions will negatively impact them.”
These communities include Innovators and Business Owners; Libraries, Archives, and Museums; Students; Impacts on Online Privacy and Digital Security; Website Owners; Gamers; Artists; Journalists and Whistleblowers; Tinkerers and Repairers; Free Software; and Cosplayers and Fans of Anime, Cartoons, or Movies.
Before the deal was signed, fifteen different organizations issued an open letter asking TPP negotiators to provide public safeguards for copyrighted works. These groups include Australian Digital Alliance, Consumer NZ (New Zealand), Copia Institute (United States), Creative Commons (International), Electronic Frontier Foundation (United States, Australia), Hiperderecho (Peru), Futuristech Info (International), Global Exchange (International), iFixit (International), New Media Rights (United States), ONG Derecho Digitales (Chile), Open Media (Canada), Public Citizen (United States), and Public Knowledge (United States).
The authors of the letter state copyright restricts important, everyday use of creative works. The groups call on the negotiators to be open to new changes that require participating nations to develop balanced and flexible rules on copyrights. Also highlighted in the letter are four key concerns from the organizations, including retroactive copyright term extension, a ban on circumvention of technology protection measures, “heavy-handed criminal penalties and civil damages,” and trade secret rules that could criminalize investigative journalism and whistleblowers reporting on corporate wrongdoing.
As the EFF writes, “Despite its earlier promises that the TPP would bring ‘greater balance’ to copyright more than any other recent trade agreement, the most recent leak of the Intellectual Property chapter belies their claims. The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has still failed to live up to its word that it would enshrine meaningful public rights to use copyrighted content in this agreement.”
The TPP is not only facing resistance from electronic privacy groups, but from grassroots activists and concerned professionals around the world. Both the Anglican and Catholic churches of New Zealand have demanded governments be more transparent about the negotiations. Radio NZ reports that bishops from the churches are concerned with the lack of openness. They are worried corporate interests are influencing the agreement while the people are excluded. The churches also called on the New Zealand government to make the draft text of the agreement public.
Doctors Without Borders released a statement following the conclusion of negotiations:
“Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) expresses its dismay that TPP countries have agreed to United States government and multinational drug company demands that will raise the price of medicines for millions by unnecessarily extending monopolies and further delaying price-lowering generic competition. The big losers in the TPP are patients and treatment providers in developing countries. Although the text has improved over the initial demands, the TPP will still go down in history as the worst trade agreement for access to medicines in developing countries, which will be forced to change their laws to incorporate abusive intellectual property protections for pharmaceutical companies.”
In early February 2015, doctors and health professionals representing seven countries released a letter warning the TPP will lead to higher medical costs for all nations. The letter, published in the Lancet Medical Journal, states, “Rising medicine costs would disproportionately affect already vulnerable populations.” Those doctors called on the governments involved in the trade deal to publicly release the full text of the agreement. They also demanded an independent analysis of the effects on health and human rights for each nation involved in the deal.
© Unknown
Swiss army chief André Blattmann warned, in a Swiss newspaper article on Sunday, the risks of social unrest in Europe are soaring. Recalling the experience of 1939/1945, Blattman fears the increasing aggression in public discourse is an explosively hazardous situation, and advises the Swiss people to arm themselves and warns that the basis for Swiss prosperity is “being called into question.”
As Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reports,speaking on the record for the first time since the November Paris terror attacks, Blattmann told the paper that despite a rise in security incidents over the past two years Switzerland’s means of defense were being reduced.
The situation is growing increasingly risky, Blattman begins.
“The threat of terror is rising, hybrid wars are being fought around the globe; the economic outlook is gloomy and the resulting migration flows of displaced persons and refugees have assumed unforeseen dimensions.”
Blattmann: “Social unrest can not be ruled out”, the vocabulary in public discourse will “dangerously aggressive.”
“The mixture is increasingly unappetizing” Blattmann sees the basis of Swiss prosperity, “has long been once again called into question.”
He recalls the situation around the two world wars in the last century and advises Switzerland, to arm themselves.
The Swiss Armed Forces had held many years ago maneuver, in which the starting point was focused on social unrest in Europe.
Swiss politicians, of course, responded with disbelief to the army chief and hold his warnings are exaggerated.
With permission from
© Youssef Boudlal/Reuters
Belgian soldiers and police patrolling the streets of Brussels, protecting against imminent terror.
Belgian soldiers and police patrolling the streets of Brussels, protecting against imminent terror.
Things are heating up and moving fast since the terror attacks in France just over one week ago. Since then, we have seen almost daily police raids, arrests and terror alerts and threats on every continent. Western governments are reacting in the only way they know how: declaring states of emergency, cracking down on maybe terrorist cells, staging night-time raids on citizens’ homes, dropping bombs in Syria and Iraq, and pushing through new ‘anti-terror’ legislation.
What we are seeing, among other things, are the reactions of various factions within the Western power elite, sometimes acting at cross purposes. Chaos – no matter what the cause – is always an opportunity to bring about a new kind of ‘order’. It’s cynical, but for those of a fascist bent, this means tightening controls on populations, solidifying their own power base, and manipulating the public through fear. Think of it as a social ‘shock doctrine’.
Having said that, not all European leaders are likely to be fully on board with this kind of “fascist” agenda where big government and big business hook up to expand their influence and wealth. Some have some shred of decency, or at the very least, some enlightened self-interest. They realize that as the leaders of supposedly sovereign nations, they little more than US vassals, and while they are largely powerless to do anything about it, they don’t like it. They know that such a power relationship only ends up benefiting the U.S. They’ve been blackmailed, threatened and otherwise coerced into toeing Washington’s line for years, and that’s bound to grate on the nerves.
A terror attack like the one in Paris last week loosens the existing status quo. Emotions run high, making easier political actions that would otherwise be too much to hope for. Both types of leaders can exploit such an attack for their own purposes. Consider the raids taking place in various EU countries. These are a perfect opportunity to take care of various types of undesirables, whether domestic or foreign. Possible targets: jihadi terrorist cells, ‘Gladio’ cells, foreign spies, domestic saboteurs. In the case of Gladio, this is a perfect opportunity for European leaders to clean up a few U.S.-backed terrorists. What can the U.S. say? “You arrested our terrorists!” As for the fascist types, they are more than willing to throw a few expendable Islamic patsies to the dogs. The same goes for non-European nations.
At the same time, it looks as if France (and maybe other nations) is responding in such a way that it draws it closer to Russia. France did not invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty (‘an attack on one is an attack on all’). Instead, the Russian and French militaries are talking with each other and coordinating their operations in Syria, to some degree anyway. Hollande is scheduled to meet with Putin this week, right after visiting Washington. This is perhaps a way of joining the Russian-led operation in Syria without doing so explicitly. France can still pretend to be Washington’s lapdog, when in reality it is working closer with Russia. It would be nice to see that, but it’s hard to say for sure at this point if a full EU/Russian rapprochement is on the cards.
But even if there are some within the European establishment who are attempting to exercise a little sovereignty in their response to the bloody mayhem in Paris, on the whole it looks like things will only get worse. No matter how many positive actions they take within the events and narrative provided for them by the international terrorists (whether in Raqqa or Washington), they can’t stop what’s coming. The trajectory is predictable: even if France and others were to get on board with Russia’s anti-ISIS coalition, that will not change the shift to fascism going on in these nations. With racism on the rise (thanks to the refugee crisis) and far-right parties gaining in popularity, they are one step away from full-blown pathocracy of the same sort brought on by the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. Europeans are stumbling blindly right into it.
That said, continuing on with my coverage of the Paris attacks, I have a few more questions. First of all, I missed this one from last Sunday. The screenshot below is from a cached version of an ITV Report:
Question: Who told RTL that Salah was “captured alive” and that tear gas helped them do it? Perhaps the RTL reporter responsible for this lie should be fired. Or the official who shared it. Or perhaps they were telling the truth.
Next is an account of the death of Hasna Ait Boulahcen – the West’s “first female suicide bomber”:
Her death in the Saint Denis siege was instant. Jean-Michel Fauvergue, 56, the French anti terror commander who led the raid described how he saw her head fly through the window. Her spine landed on a police car.
‘That’s when we saw a human body, a woman’s head, fly through the window and land on the pavement, on the other side of the street,’ Fauvergue said.
‘A suicide bomber had just exploded. The blast was so devastating that a supporting wall moved.’
Now watch this video for the latest iteration of the story.
So Ait Boulahcen was NOT the suicide bomber – a suggestion I made in my previous article before the story changed. Additionally, 7 out of 8 of the people arrested during the raid have been released. That includes all 5 who were allegedly in the apartment, including the 2 who were reportedly found “in the rubble” and who had allegedly been the ones engaging in a shootout with the police for several hours.
But the real question here is; how can it be possible that the Chief of the French RAID team that attacked the apartment saw a head and spinal column of a “woman” land in the street beside him only for the “truth” to then be revealed that the suicide bomber was in fact a third, unidentified, man?
This isn’t the only serious problem with the narrative around the Paris attacks. One of the attacks that night took place at the Comptoir Voltaire cafe. At about 21:40 on the 13th, a man named as Ibrahim Abdeslam – the brother of Salah who is currently the subject of a man hunt – sat down in the Comptoir Voltaire café and placed an order before detonating his suicide vest, killing himself and injuring fifteen people. That’s it. No gunfire, no fatalities, just some guy who blows himself up while seated at a cafe. According to people who knew him, Ibrahim ran a bar in Brussels where he and patrons would drink and smoke pot, two ‘vices’ that are illegal under strict Islamic law. Just like the “mastermind” that allegedly died in the St. Denis raid, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who never attended mosques, these are some very unlikely “Muslim extremists”.
When Ibrahim allegedly blew himself up, the blast was so small that it didn’t even kill him, according to a man who was at the cafe. David, who is a registered nurse, tried to give CPR to Ibrahim, thinking he was a victim. “He did not look to have massive injuries but appeared unconscious.”
The strangest part of the story of the Comptoir Voltaire attack however is an image of the cafe’s window that the mainstream media has been using to illustrate the ‘suicide bomb’ story:
The window of the Comptoir Voltaire cafe where a “suicide bomber blew himself up”. No shots were fired…yet those windows…
Lastly, consider these details about Ibrahim’s brother, Salah, who is allegedly being hunted through Belgium and now Germany:
They often saw him in the club, the clean-shaven 26-year-old who enjoyed smoking joints and chatting with other men. He was in the gay sex bar in central Brussels as recently as one month ago, and nobody who saw him lounging comfortably there could have imagined for a moment that he was about to become the most wanted man in Europe.
The handsome youth with a taste for hashish has since been identified as Salah Abdeslam, suspected of being part of the terrorist unit that killed 130 people in Paris last weekend. The attackers were hailed in jihadist circles as martyrs, yet for regulars at the men-only clubs in the Saint-Jacques quarter of central Brussels, Abdeslam was just another pot-smoking party-goer.
“We had him down as a rent boy, he was always hanging out with that kind of crowd,” said Julien, the bartender of a club Abdeslam visited last month. The owners of the club, who spoke to The Sunday Times on condition that they not be identified, recognised Abdeslam’s picture in the aftermath of the attacks and immediately alerted the police, who are now studying CCTV footage of the area.
A druggie rent-boy jihadi terrorist? I’ve surely heard it all now. And this is the guy who “spent time with ISIS” in Syria, those crazy fanatics with a penchant for throwing homosexuals off the nearest roof…
To get a picture of what has happened in just ten days, have a look at the following headlines.
Anti-terror ops, raids, arrests, executions
- France: Mass shootings, explosions in Paris attacks (Nov. 13)
- Belgium: Brussels police arrest 7 in in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean district raids (Nov. 14)
- France cracks down with nearly 800 raids since attacks, 90 people detained, and 174 weapons seized (Nov. 14-20)
- New Anonymous video claims hacker collective has eliminated 20,000 ISIS-related Twitter accounts (Nov. 16-20)
- France: Terror mastermind and ‘female suicide bomber’ killed in St-Denis raid (Nov. 18)
- Kuwait: Security forces dismantle multinational ISIL cell (Nov. 19)
- Belgium: Nine raids on Paris-related properties, nine arrested (Nov. 19)
- China: security forces terminate 28 terrorists sent into country from abroad (Nov. 20)
- Turkey: Trio detained on suspicion of aiding Paris attacks, scouting locations (Nov. 21)
- Belgium: Terror police arrest six Brits as security forces put Brussels on lockdown (Nov. 21)
- Russia: 11 militants from ISIS-linked gang killed in anti-terror op in Russia’s North Caucasus (Nov. 22)
- ‘Belgium: ‘Special Operation’ in Brussels, 16 arrests in Charleroi (Nov. 22)
Terror attacks, possible acts of sabotage and tragic ‘accidents’
- Lebanon: 41 killed, dozens wounded in worst Beirut terrorist attack since 1990 (Nov. 12)
- France: 10 reported dead, many injured, after high-speed train derails in northeast France (Nov. 14)
- Nigeria: Boko Haram suspected in Nigeria market blast that left 32 dead and 80 injured (Nov. 17)
- Nigeria: 50 killed as two female suicide bombers target market in Kano (Nov. 18)
- Mali: 170 people taken hostage in Mali hotel (Nov. 20)
- Russia: State of emergency, blackout in Russia’s Crimea after transmission towers in Ukraine blown up (Nov. 21)
- United States: Mass shooting at Bunny Friend Park: Up to 16 people shot at New Orleans playground party (Nov. 22)
Terror threats and false alarms
- London’s Gatwick airport evacuated for French national carrying two firearms (Nov. 14)
- Hundreds of people evacuated from Moscow’s ‘Cosmos’ hotel over false bomb threat (Nov. 15)
- Stadium evacuated in Germany over potential terrorist attack – Merkel, other top officials were expected to attend (Nov. 17)
- Sweden goes on high alert, citing concrete info on terror attack preparations (Nov. 18)
- New York City is a target – states newly released “ISIS” video (Nov. 18)
- Germany: Hanover bomb plot using converted ambulance foiled (Nov. 18)
- Paris attacks: ISIS could use chemical weapons in next attack warns French PM (Nov. 19)
- Malaysian police claim 10 suicide bombers stationed in Kuala Lumpur (Nov. 20)
- New ISIS video threatens to blow up White House; turn it ‘black’ (Nov. 20)
- Brussels moves to highest terror alert; warn Paris-style attack may be imminent (Nov. 21)
- Hacktivists claim ISIS planning attacks in Paris, US, other worldwide locations for this Sunday (Nov. 21)
- Belgium: Brussels warns attack imminent (Nov. 22)
Planes diverted, evacuated
- Terror threat’ reported as two Air France flights from US to Paris diverted, forced to land (Nov. 17)
- Passenger’s bomb ‘joke’ forces plane to land in Bulgaria (Nov. 19)
- Plane makes emergency landing in Florida over bomb threat (Nov. 20)
- Turkish Airlines flight NYC-Istanbul lands in Canada after bomb threat (Nov. 22)
Fascists coming out of the woodwork
- “Clearly a hate crime”: Mosque set on fire in Canada (Nov. 15)
- Never again? New far-right party leaps to third in German polls (Nov. 17)
- Rhode Island Republican: Syrian refugees should be held in ‘centralized’ camps; ‘Our country is under attack’ (Nov. 17)
- Taking a page from Hitler’s notebook: Trump hints at surveillance, special IDs for Muslims (Nov. 19)
- US House of Reps passes bill adding barriers for Syrian and Iraqi refugees entering US (Nov. 19)
- Belgian government introduces a raft of some quite draconian new security measures (Nov. 19)
- Presidential candidate Ben Carson compares Syrian refugees to rabid dogs (Nov. 19)
- Land of free-dumb: CNN reporter suspended for mildly criticizing Congress decision to ban Syrian and Iraqi refugees from entering US (Nov. 20)
- Limited free movement: EU to strengthen border control to fight terrorism (Nov. 20)
- French employers federation uses state of emergency to monitor workers for ‘radicalist excesses’ (Nov. 21)
- Brussels, Belgium, placed under martial law as soldiers patrol streets and city shuts down (Nov. 22)
Harrison Koehli hails from Edmonton, Alberta. A graduate of studies in music performance, Harrison is also an editor for Red Pill Press and has been interviewed on several North American radio shows in recognition of his contributions to advancing the study of ponerology. In addition to music and books, Harrison enjoys tobacco and bacon (often at the same time) and dislikes cell phones, vegetables, and fascists.
Tales from the Conspiratum 
Comment: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. André Blattman advises the Swiss people to ‘arm themselves’ in preparation for social unrest, but that suggestion alone seems like just more fear-mongering. A collapse certainly looks like it’s coming, as the West is more interested in bombing than solving problems. But it’s critical to learn the daily habits of prepared people and take a look at prepping a truly healthy diet. After all, without our health, both physical and psychological, we’re just as likely to collapse as our society is. Also see: Top threats to your life when the SHTF and how to prepare for them