Every once in a blue moon, Brooks's fantasyland optimism sparks him to say something reasonable.
I really admire Obama as a president now. Grew up in a fairly republican household, so I had the bias towards not liking him for a long time, but as I have seem him speak, act, and so on it really seems like he was absolutely right to say that he brought change to the whitehouse. Not that it'll last to the next term, but he clearly learned and changed the ways he acted over the course of the presidency, he hasn't been scared to give answers to difficult questions on those youtube-google interviews, and all his policies really have been focused on trying to get things done despite a massive amount of opposition. It's why I really trust his support for TPP, he's been the president for eight years, he knows the nation better than most of us do, and here is is backing a bill that everyone seems to hate, but nobody can quite nail down why without lying about the bill's contents. Obamacare isn't the best, but it's better than what was before, and passed despite massive opposition from republicans. Bernie is a "hopeless" idealist who seems to get most of his support by smashing and blaming some group of people for all our troubles. Of all of them, he seems like the best president, but I'm not a huge fan. Hillary is a corrupt weasel who will lie and twist her way into supporting any popular position, and I'll never support someone who reacts to video games with a "lets ban all violent video games". The republicans are mostly shit, although I do kind of like Jeb bush for saying that global warming actually does exist in one debate. Obama deserved that candidacy, and that presidency. I hope the next president turns out to be just as awesome.
Not exactly: (1) Digital Policies that Benefit Big Corporations at the Expense of the Public: The IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of expression, right to privacy and due process, as well as hindering peoples' abilities to innovate. Other chapters of the agreement encourage your personal data to be sent borders with limited protection for your privacy, and allow foreign corporations to sue countries for laws or regulations that promote the public interest, (2) Lack of Transparency: The entire process has shut out multi-stakeholder participation and is shrouded in secrecy. The twelve nations currently negotiating the TPP are the U.S., Japan, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, and Brunei Darussalam. The TPP contains a chapter on intellectual property covering copyright, trademarks, and patents. The official release of the final TPP text confirmed what we had long feared: that U.S. negotiators pushed for the adoption of copyright measures far more restrictive than currently required by international treaties, including the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).a bill that everyone seems to hate, but nobody can quite nail down why without lying about the bill's contents.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a secretive, multinational trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement. The main problems are two-fold:
"secretive" because it was debated in secret like every other trade agreement. "threatens to extend IP laws" is because it ensures that all nations have similar laws, and the US having such extreme laws required everyone else to bring them up a bit. Meanwhile, the US is going to have to agree to lower them a bit (I believe I actually read some US companies were angry that the terms weren't STRICT enough). It "rewrites" international rules on it's enforcement because you need to do that in order to have a multi-nation free-trade agreement. It will also allow companies to innovate without fearing having that RND money immediately put down the toilet from nations like China making cheap knockoffs and undercutting their business without any form of investment. The only real gripe I have with TPP is the privacy thing, and I really believe the rest of the bill is well worth that cost, especially considering we haven't had any privacy for ages now in the first place. Yeah, it allows companies to sue if a nation creates undue restrictions on a foreign company. So if the US says "Canadian companies must do X" then Canadian companies can sue. That's a good thing, not a bad one, and courts exist to find cases where this sort of thing can be abused, such as tobacco companies suing for requirement for labels. They could sue if their foreign tobacco required a label, while native stuff did not, and that suit would pass. Again, like every other trade agreement in history, this is a requirement to have honest debate and negotiation.The IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of expression, right to privacy and due process, as well as hindering peoples' abilities to innovate.
allow foreign corporations to sue countries for laws or regulations that promote the public interest,
The entire process has shut out multi-stakeholder participation and is shrouded in secrecy.
I can't imagine why anyone who is not in the pocket of big corporations would shill for this piece of crap. There's everything in it for the corporations, and nothing at all for the people, the environment, or national sovereignty. Here's what Bernie has to say about it : "Let’s be clear: the TPP is much more than a "free trade" agreement. It is part of a global race to the bottom to boost the profits of large corporations and Wall Street by outsourcing jobs; undercutting worker rights; dismantling labor, environmental, health, food safety and financial laws; and allowing corporations to challenge our laws in international tribunals rather than our own court system."
The fact someone sued is not a set precedent. In fact: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/18/australia-wins-international-legal-battle-with-philip-morris-over-plain-packaging The precedent was set for cases like this.If the tribunal finds unfavourably against Australia
The minister responsible for tobacco policy, Fiona Nash, said: “We welcome the unanimous decision by the tribunal agreeing with Australia’s position that it has no jurisdiction to hear Philip Morris’s claim.”
Except, for the reasons I stated, a whole lot of that disagreement is "lying about it". It's not a "secretive" bill, it's not allowing companies to sue for things that are unreasonable. It's not some great and massive threat to the world, it's a trade agreement.
Except it is a secretive bill. Even if it's only as secretive as other trade agreements, even if it's secrecy is necessary, it's not dishonest to point out that it's secretive. It is allowing companies to sue for certain things which some people claim are unreasonable. That first clause is true. The second clause is an opinion. The claim that it's a threat to the world is also an opinion. Even if you disagree, none of them are lies.
When I was a kid, the TV stations exploded from four to fifty. Kids today can watch anything anytime anywhere. "TV station" is an anachronism - if you look at the way Channelmaster and others advertise their antennas, it's "holy shit! Look at all the content you can get for free!" When I was a kid, your choices were the radio or your record collection. If you wanted to listen to music on the go you had two albums per cassette tape. Kids today can listen to anything anytime anywhere. "Radio station" is a skeuomorphic analogy used to analogize algorithmic song selection. When I was a kid, there were two, maybe three newspapers and three or four news programs to give you your information, your editorial, your perspective on world events. Kids today read maybe two or three national papers online and a virtually unlimited number of additional sources at varying levels of credibility, editorial polish and snark. Didja watch the Super Bowl? Didja see the half-time show? Was it not the most insipid thing you've seen since the '84 olympics closing ceremony? That's 'cuz nowadays, the common denominator of a hundred million people is so common that it has nothing for anyone. The basic baseline we all have in common is so sparse and unattended that broad appeal isn't appealing anymore. What we have are a million and one pet issues and a million and one perspectives and they're all at cross-purposes because we no longer rub them together to make them fit. What cuts through is extremism - extreme opinions, extreme positions, extreme reactions - which get noticed if not necessarily listened to. Thus, you don't have to agree with Trump to be knowledgeable about his positions. You needn't adhere to Sanders' socialism to be able to argue about it. Everyone is competing for attention... and there's no such thing as bad publicity. Fortunately much of governance is accomplished in the dark, off the record. Thus, the populist frontrunners are ironically the least likely to accomplish anything.Why do we have such seeming tribalism building in the race for the presidency? Why is Sanders running now, of all times, and why is Trump so much more successful now than any other time?
I find it interesting how Brooks takes every candidate to task on integrity, and where he finds it in Sanders, he explains his reasoning for not liking him because of pragmatism. I love reading David Brooks because his essays are almost like diary entries. I wonder if he writes these, clicks 'send', then drifts off to sleep.
Thanks for this. Shared on facebook in hopes that everyone bickering about such and such candidate takes a second for self-reflection.