Yes, Virginia, the TPP is at least as bad as its critics say it is.

By Joe Firestone, Ph.D., Managing Director, CEO of the Knowledge Management Consortium International (KMCI), and Director of KMCI’s CKIM Certificate program. He taught political science as the graduate and undergraduate level and blogs regularly at Corrente, Firedoglake and New Economic Perspectives. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives

People who support the Administration’s efforts on the TPP have been known to reply to my posts on this subject by attempting to ridicule the scenarios I’ve presented as possible under the TPP Agreement as “out there” speculation of the tin foil variety that will never actually happen. For those who think that my examples of what is possible under the TPP are just this kind of speculation, please keep in mind that I don’t have the proposed draft agreements to work from.

This is due to the President’s decision to classify the drafts and seek Fast Track Authority before disclosing them more freely even to Congress for an up or down vote. However, there is no indication from anyone that the actual drafts of the agreement contain rules that would definitively prevent the possible very damaging consequences I’ve mentioned here for example.

Elizabeth Warren and Bill Black make clear why the secrecy and Fast Track Authority (FTA) itself are anti-democratic, and they also point out that some speculation, or at least educated guesses about what exactly is in the TPP, is forced upon us in order to carry on political debate before it is too late to have it because Congress has given up its constitutionally important debate, negotiation, and amendment capabilities to the Fast Track process.

In short, debate on the TPP, and perhaps disclosure of it, must come first, before FTA is approved. Afterward no legitimate debate can be forced on those who want to push approval through Congress. So, why would they agree to one?

However, I don’t need access to the TPP text to counter the wild speculation charge. The fact is, that TPP Agreement provisions establishing Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals allow supra-national elite authorities unaccountable to voters to trump domestic laws and in so doing subordinate the Government of the United States and the consent of the governed to such authorities. ...................(more)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/ridiculing-concerns-tpp-tyranny.html