Οbama defends TTIP, Europeans revolt against it!

24/04/2016

Speaking in Germany today, President Obama has strongly defended the TTIP, the new important tool of multinationals’ power over societies, asking for the treaty to be ratified already this year.

The TTIP is negotiated in the most secretive way, trying to keep the public and the parliaments, as much as possible, away from any discussion of its provisions, which will affect every aspect of citizens’ life, including their health and the most important democratic rights they still enjoy.

Obama’ s speech in defense of TTIP comes twenty days after the majority of the Dutch voters has provoked big troubles to European governments, the European Union and, also, to the US government and NATO, by rejecting the ratification, by their country, of the EU-Ukraine agreement.

But now, the Dutch people is probably preparing an even more serious blow to the forces of “financial totalitarianism” dominating both European national and EU institutions – and also US administration and international financial institutions.

The Socialist Party of the Netherlands, is taking the initiative to collect signatures for a second referendum, on the TTIP this time! Some 100,000 Dutch citizens have already signed a petition demanding a referendum on TTIP. 300,000 names are needed to trigger a non-binding vote on the issue, as was the case with the Ukraine plebiscite.

The Socialist Party (Socialistische Partij) which is pushing for the referendum was founded in 1977 and it won 15 out of 150 seats (10%) in the elections in 2012, equivalent to just under 910,000 individual votes. In 2005, this party had played a great role in the rejection of the proposed European Constitutional Treaty by Dutch voters. In contrast to many other parties and movements in Europe, claiming of the “radical left”, this party seems quite succesful.

The referendum is not binding. Still no government or parliament can ignore it without paying a huge political cost and without contributing further to the massive de-legitimization of European political elites and the EU.

And even if they ignore it, the idea of holding a referendum is helping bring the attention of the public to TTIP, a treaty which may have colossal consequences for democracy, national sovereignty, health of the population and the enviroment. Essentially the treaty gives unprecedented powers to multinational corporations and financial organizations to overcome the will of the people as expressed by national parliaments and governments.

We are speaking about a huge “regime change” in the West, both in the United States and in Europe. Multinational corporations and the politically coherent wind of the international financial capital have already an unprecedented influence on supposedly elected national political bodies and the unelected governing bodies of the European Union, other international organizations, official “intellectuals” and the media system. With the TTIP they try to formalize and institutionalize their previous successes.

Modern West was based, at least in theory, on the principle of popular sovereignty. This principle has replaced the monarchic system of government which was basing its legitimacy on religion. The new system was based, at least in theory, to the free will of the people. In order to impose the new regime, the French decapitated their kings. Now, it is International Finance which tries to “decapitate” European and North American societies, in order to impose its own regime. They want to deprive Europeans and North Americans (and everybody else for that matter) of political ideas, political leaders, of any legal means to resist the globalization order and, even, of their states.