I don’t know who slipped these anti-TTIP posters onto London Underground trains, but respect to them. If you don’t know about TTIP, here’s some basic information.
What is TTIP exactly, and what’s it for? Interview with the World Development Movement
It’s the brainchild of the corporate Empire – a way to transfer more money and power to them and away from elected governments and ordinary people. It will reduce the number of small businesses and consolidate wealth and power in large corporations. Here are:
10 reasons you should care about TTIP, and what you can do about it.
The negotiations for TTIP and it’s sister deals TPP and TISA have been conducted in secret, and one of the reasons we know anything about them at all is exposure by Wikileaks. For example, ISDS is a part of the deal that allows corporations to sue elected governments if it can be shown that their policies have reduced corporate profits in any way. Here’s a superb overview from the Wikileaks channel, including John Pilger. It includes a snippet that seems to show that ISDS could even be used against governments that increase the minimum wage!
The US strategy to create a new global legal and economic system: TPP, TTIP, TISA
The EU commission has suggested the removal of ISDS from the negotiations, but that didn’t please US corporations one little bit:
Here’s what TTIP will mean for health services in Europe:
Why we need to stop TTIP if we care about the national health services of European countries
And here’s a hilarious infographic explaining what ‘transparency’ means in terms of TTIP:
This is what transparency means when it comes to TTIP
The wonderful tube poster at the top of the page notwithstanding, Europeans seem to be more energised against TTIP than Brits – for example, a quarter of a million Germans hit the streets in the biggest protest that country has seen in years.
… and here’s the handover of three and a quarter million EU signatures against TTIP and CETA in Brussels a couple of weeks ago:
The European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
Plus, here’s an Abba lookalike band singing a (very good) anti-TTIP song on mainstream Dutch TV – it’s called ChiquiTTIP! Start at 11.40 when it changes to English.
Chiqui-TTIP on ‘Zondag met Lubach’
It’s quite clever, don’t you think? No? OK, go and write a protest song about a proposed trade treaty of your choice in Dutch, then tell me it isn’t.
So, I’m wondering whether continental Europeans are in fact up in arms about TTIP more than Brits are. I don’t have a TV, so I don’t know if there are any anti-TTIP songs performed on prime-time TV. What do you think? Do people in your social circles know anything about TTIP?
If they do, and they’d like to do something to help fight it, these are the people to talk to:
