#FallRising to #StopTPP via @EFF & @FlushtheTPP — Best of the Left Activism

You’ve reached today’s activism segment. Now that you’re informed and angry, here’s a reminder that certain awful things don’t go away quickly, so we have to stay vigilant and keep fighting them until we succeed. Today’s update: #FallRising to Stop the TPP.

Final agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership was reached this month and the Obama administration PR push is already being rolled out.

According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, the TPP would create:

Comprehensive market access
Regional approach to commitments
Addressing new trade challenges
Inclusive trade
Platform for regional integration.

Via the New York Times, this would be the largest regional trade accord in history and the president is likely to spend most of his final year in office securing approval from Congress. In a statement Obama said:

“When more than 95 percent of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy. We should write those rules, opening new markets to American products while setting high standards for protecting workers and preserving our environment.”

There was immediate bipartisan opposition — opposition that needs to be supported and amplified.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Citizen & others continue to raise objections to the TPP. EFF sites four particularly destructive possible outcomes of the trade deal:

Retroactive 20-year copyright term extensions
Bans on circumventing digital rights management technologies
Massively disproportionate punishments for copyright infringement
Rules that criminalize investigative journalists and whistleblowers.

EFF is collaborating with Flush the TPP for next month’s #FallRising to Stop TPP, TTIP, & TiSA. From Flush the TPP’s website and Facebook event page:

"From November 14 to 18, 2015, people will converge on Washington, DC to demand that the United States drop these deals and create, in a transparent and democratic way, alternative international agreements that put people and the planet first."

You can get more information on #FallRising at EFF.org and register through FlushTheTPP.org. Flush the TPP is coordinating places and to stay and food for participants through First Trinity Church, so if you can get there, you’ll be taken care of.

Those who wish to support the effort, but are unable to attend can follow the #FallRising hashtag and make donations at the registration page. You can also get projected job loss data for each state at Citizen.Org — Public Citizen’s website — and use ContactingTheCongress.org to send constituent-specific concerns to your legislators asking them to vote against approval of the TPP. Your reps are always more likely to be responsive to narrow data that concerns whether voters in their districts will lose their jobs.

Update!

Terms on the Trans-Pacific Partnership were finalized: "Trade Officials Announce Conclusion of TPP—Now the Real Fight Begins” via Electronic Frontier Foundation

Follow-up/new Action!

ATTEND the #FallRising to Stop TPP, TTIP, & TISA by registering through Flush the TPP: Call to Action Against Global Corporate Domination: November 14-18 & RSVPing to the Facebook event

Find out projected job loss & more expected in your area using the Public Citizen state-by-state outcome map: 50 Reasons We Cannot Afford the TPP’s Expansion of the NAFTA Model.

Then use ContactingTheCongress.org to directly lobby your representatives to vote no on passage of the TPP.

Sources:

What Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)? via Electronic Frontier Foundation

WATCH: "U.S., Other Nations Reach Agreement On Trans-Pacific Partnership” via NPR

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Leveling the playing field for American workers & American businesses. via Office of the US Trade Representative

Summary of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement via Office of the US Trade Representative

"TPP deal: US and 11 other countries reach landmark Pacific trade pact” via The Guardian