TPP. aka The Corporate Death Star.

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by caveman, Sep 13, 2012.

  1. caveman

    caveman Threadkiller

    http://www.opednews.com/articles/Meet-the-TPP-A-Worldwide-by-Laurel-Sutherlin-120912-636.html


    We have four days to stop a top-secret global corporate power grab that attacks everything from a free Internet to environmental protections. This agreement is being negotiated right now by bureaucrats backed by corporate lobbyists. Click below to crash their secret meeting with our global call to kill the TPP deal:


    Details are leaking of a top-secret, global corporate power grab of breathtaking scope -- attacking everything from a free Internet to health and environmental regulations, and we have just 4 days to stop it.

    Big business has a new plan to fatten their pockets: a giant global pact, with an international tribunal to enforce it, that is kept top secret for years (even from our lawmakers!) and then brought down like a Death Star on our democracies. Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Walmart and almost 600 other corporate lobbyists are all in on the draft -- including limits on smoking laws, affordable medicines and free speech on the Net.

    The latest round of negotiations ends in just 4 days -- but outcries in each of our countries could shake the confidence of negotiators and scuttle the talks forever. Let's get to a million against the global corporate takeover. Sign below and forward widely. Avaaz will project our petition counter on the walls of the conference so negotiators can see the opposition to their plan exploding in real time:
     
  2. caveman

    caveman Threadkiller

    PLEASE SIGN.

    http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corporate_death_star/?bVcOlcb&v=17848


    The deal, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is written to protect investors from government regulation, even if that regulation is passed in the public interest. Leaked versions suggest the TPP would undermine protections for air and water safety and reintroduce measures from the US Internet freedom attack as well as steamrolling efforts to produce generic affordable medicines. Worse still, lawmakers who fail to conform to the TPP’s rules face sanctions in an international tribunal -- a place where corporations can sue us for deals previous governments signed in secret!

    Negotiators say this is just a trade agreement, written to facilitate investment and profit for all. But the leaked draft imposes so many limits on citizen protections, it's clear this "trade" agreement is skewed to put corporate profit above people's needs -- that's not surprising since it's been drafted in secret with almost 600 corporate lobbyists.

    But there is hope: Australia is bucking against the international tribunal system, and New Zealand is objecting to the takeover of its medicine-pricing protections that keep drugs affordable. Massive public opposition, casting doubt over each country's ability to sell TPP at home, could derail the talks for good. Sign the petition now, and forward widely -- the delegates and lobbyists are watching the wave of opposition grow in real time:
     
  3. caveman

    caveman Threadkiller

    US Senator, Elizabeth Warren in a recent speech said: “Corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters, because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people." Let’s reach one million to stop the corporate takeover of our governments.

    http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2012/09/12/tpp-americas-hidden-agenda/
     
  4. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    I appreciate your passion caveman, but please stop making multiple posts in your own thread; MAP is a discussion forum, make your point and then wait for others to post and create a discussion :)

    MItch
     
  5. caveman

    caveman Threadkiller

    Sorry, wasn't room in one post.
     
  6. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

    But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.


    The Windhover

    I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
    dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
    High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
    In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 5
    As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
    Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

    Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 10
    Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

    No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
    Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.


    I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

    APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
    Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
    Memory and desire, stirring
    Dull roots with spring rain.
    Winter kept us warm, covering 5
    Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
    A little life with dried tubers.
    Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
    With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
    And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
    And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
    Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
    And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
    My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
    And I was frightened. He said, Marie, 15
    Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
    In the mountains, there you feel free.
    I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

    What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
    Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
    You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
    A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
    And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
    And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
    There is shadow under this red rock, 25
    (Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
    And I will show you something different from either
    Your shadow at morning striding behind you
    Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
    I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 30
    Frisch weht der Wind
    Der Heimat zu,
    Mein Irisch Kind,
    Wo weilest du?
    “You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; 35
    They called me the hyacinth girl.”
    —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
    Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
    Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
    Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 40
    Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
    Öd’ und leer das Meer.

    Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
    Had a bad cold, nevertheless
    Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, 45
    With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
    Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
    (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
    Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
    The lady of situations. 50
    Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
    And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
    Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
    Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
    The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. 55
    I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
    Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
    Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
    One must be so careful these days.

    Unreal City, 60
    Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
    A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
    I had not thought death had undone so many.
    Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
    And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. 65
    Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
    To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
    With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
    There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
    You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70
    That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
    Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
    Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
    Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
    Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! 75
    You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

    II. A GAME OF CHESS

    The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
    Glowed on the marble, where the glass
    Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
    From which a golden Cupidon peeped out 80
    (Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
    Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
    Reflecting light upon the table as
    The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
    From satin cases poured in rich profusion; 85
    In vials of ivory and coloured glass
    Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
    Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
    And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
    That freshened from the window, these ascended 90
    In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
    Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
    Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
    Huge sea-wood fed with copper
    Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone, 95
    In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
    Above the antique mantel was displayed
    As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
    The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
    So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale 100
    Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
    And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
    “Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
    And other withered stumps of time
    Were told upon the walls; staring forms 105
    Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
    Footsteps shuffled on the stair,
    Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
    Spread out in fiery points
    Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. 110

    “My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
    Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
    What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
    I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

    I think we are in rats’ alley 115
    Where the dead men lost their bones.

    “What is that noise?”
    The wind under the door.
    “What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
    Nothing again nothing. 120
    “Do
    You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
    Nothing?”
    I remember
    Those are pearls that were his eyes. 125
    “Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
    But
    O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
    It’s so elegant
    So intelligent 130

    “What shall I do now? What shall I do?
    I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
    With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
    What shall we ever do?”
    The hot water at ten. 135
    And if it rains, a closed car at four.
    And we shall play a game of chess,
    Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

    When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said,
    I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself, 140
    HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
    Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
    He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
    To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
    You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, 145
    He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
    And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
    He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
    And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
    Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said. 150
    Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
    HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
    If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said,
    Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
    But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling. 155
    You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
    (And her only thirty-one.)
    I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
    It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
    (She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.) 160
    The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
    You are a proper fool, I said.
    Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
    What you get married for if you don’t want children?
    HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME 165
    Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
    And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
    HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
    HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
    Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. 170
    Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
    Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

    III. THE FIRE SERMON

    The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
    Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
    Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. 175
    Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
    The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
    Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
    Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
    And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 180
    Departed, have left no addresses.
    By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept…
    Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
    Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
    But at my back in a cold blast I hear 185
    The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

    A rat crept softly through the vegetation
    Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
    While I was fishing in the dull canal
    On a winter evening round behind the gashouse. 190
    Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
    And on the king my father’s death before him.
    White bodies naked on the low damp ground
    And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
    Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year. 195
    But at my back from time to time I hear
    The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
    Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
    O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
    And on her daughter 200
    They wash their feet in soda water
    Et, O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

    Twit twit twit
    Jug jug jug jug jug jug
    So rudely forc’d. 205
    Tereu

    Unreal City
    Under the brown fog of a winter noon
    Mr Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
    Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants 210
    C. i. f. London: documents at sight,
    Asked me in demotic French
    To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
    Followed by a week-end at the Metropole.

    At the violet hour, when the eyes and back 215
    Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
    Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
    I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
    Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
    At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220
    Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
    The typist home at tea-time, clears her breakfast, lights
    Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
    Out of the window perilously spread
    Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays, 225
    On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
    Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
    I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
    Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
    I too awaited the expected guest. 230
    He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
    A small house-agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
    One of the low on whom assurance sits
    As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
    The time is now propitious, as he guesses, 235
    The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
    Endeavours to engage her in caresses
    Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
    Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
    Exploring hands encounter no defence; 240
    His vanity requires no response,
    And makes a welcome of indifference.
    (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
    Enacted on this same divan or bed;
    I who have sat by Thebes below the wall 245
    And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
    Bestows one final patronizing kiss,
    And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit…

    She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
    Hardly aware of her departed lover; 250
    Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
    “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
    When lovely woman stoops to folly and
    Paces about her room again, alone,
    She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, 255
    And puts a record on the gramophone.

    “This music crept by me upon the waters”
    And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
    O City City, I can sometimes hear
    Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 260
    The pleasant whining of a mandoline
    And a clatter and a chatter from within
    Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
    Of Magnus Martyr hold
    Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. 265

    The river sweats
    Oil and tar
    The barges drift
    With the turning tide
    Red sails 270
    Wide
    To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
    The barges wash
    Drifting logs
    Down Greenwich reach 275
    Past the Isle of Dogs.
    Weialala leia
    Wallala leialala
    Elizabeth and Leicester
    Beating oars 280
    The stern was formed
    A gilded shell
    Red and gold
    The brisk swell
    Rippled both shores 285
    South-west wind
    Carried down stream
    The peal of bells
    White towers
    Weialala leia 290
    Wallala leialala

    “Trams and dusty trees.
    Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
    Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
    Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.“ 295

    “My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
    Under my feet. After the event
    He wept. He promised ‘a new start.’
    I made no comment. What should I resent?”

    “On Margate Sands. 300
    I can connect
    Nothing with nothing.
    The broken finger-nails of dirty hands.
    My people humble people who expect
    Nothing.” 305

    la la

    To Carthage then I came

    Burning burning burning burning
    O Lord Thou pluckest me out
    O Lord Thou pluckest 310

    burning

    IV. DEATH BY WATER

    Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
    Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
    And the profit and loss.
    A current under sea 315
    Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
    He passed the stages of his age and youth
    Entering the whirlpool.
    Gentile or Jew
    O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320
    Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

    V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

    After the torch-light red on sweaty faces
    After the frosty silence in the gardens
    After the agony in stony places
    The shouting and the crying 325
    Prison and place and reverberation
    Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
    He who was living is now dead
    We who were living are now dying
    With a little patience 330

    Here is no water but only rock
    Rock and no water and the sandy road
    The road winding above among the mountains
    Which are mountains of rock without water
    If there were water we should stop and drink 335
    Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
    Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
    If there were only water amongst the rock
    Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
    Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 340
    There is not even silence in the mountains
    But dry sterile thunder without rain
    There is not even solitude in the mountains
    But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
    From doors of mud-cracked houses
    If there were water 345
    And no rock
    If there were rock
    And also water
    And water
    A spring 350
    A pool among the rock
    If there were the sound of water only
    Not the cicada
    And dry grass singing
    But sound of water over a rock 355
    Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
    Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
    But there is no water

    Who is the third who walks always beside you?
    When I count, there are only you and I together 360
    But when I look ahead up the white road
    There is always another one walking beside you
    Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
    I do not know whether a man or a woman
    —But who is that on the other side of you? 365

    What is that sound high in the air
    Murmur of maternal lamentation
    Who are those hooded hordes swarming
    Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
    Ringed by the flat horizon only 370
    What is the city over the mountains
    Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
    Falling towers
    Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
    Vienna London 375
    Unreal

    A woman drew her long black hair out tight
    And fiddled whisper music on those strings
    And bats with baby faces in the violet light
    Whistled, and beat their wings 380
    And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
    And upside down in air were towers
    Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
    And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

    In this decayed hole among the mountains 385
    In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
    Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
    There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
    It has no windows, and the door swings,
    Dry bones can harm no one. 390
    Only a **** stood on the roof-tree
    Co co rico co co rico
    In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
    Bringing rain
    Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves 395
    Waited for rain, while the black clouds
    Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
    The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
    Then spoke the thunder
    DA 400
    Datta: what have we given?
    My friend, blood shaking my heart
    The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
    Which an age of prudence can never retract
    By this, and this only, we have existed 405
    Which is not to be found in our obituaries
    Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
    Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
    In our empty rooms
    DA 410
    Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
    Turn in the door once and turn once only
    We think of the key, each in his prison
    Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
    Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours 415
    Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
    DA
    Damyata: The boat responded
    Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
    The sea was calm, your heart would have responded 420
    Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
    To controlling hands

    I sat upon the shore
    Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
    Shall I at least set my lands in order? 425

    London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

    Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
    Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow
    Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
    These fragments I have shored against my ruins 430
    Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
    Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

    Shantih shantih shantih
     
  7. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    Seems like there's plenty of room in one post :)

    Mitch
     
  8. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Smarty Pants. I didn't read it, but I'm sure you're in trouble from some copyright law for posting a whole book!
     
  9. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    Yeah, sorry caveman, that was a smart alec way to make a point, no offence intended :)

    Mitch
     
  10. LilBunnyRabbit

    LilBunnyRabbit Old One

    Effective though.
     
  11. Caleb Demarais

    Caleb Demarais Valued Member

    Kudos for starting with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. :)
     
  12. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Do you mean that Mitch didn't actually make all that stuff up himself? :eek:
     
  13. dormindo

    dormindo Active Member Supporter

    Actually he did--who do you think wrote the Gettysburg address for Lincoln? Look very closely at some of those old, grainy photographs of the 16th President of the U.S.--you may just be able to make out, in the background, the form and countenance of a lone, eternal figure who has, for reasons unknown to historians, been at some of the most pivotal moments in history (including the moon landing), while dressed in a mankini. Godspeed to you, good sir Mitch, godspeed.


    As for the OP, how is such a thing kept top secret even from lawmakers? Not sure what you mean there.
     
  14. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    :happy::happy::happy:

    You owe me a new keyboard, this one's covered in tea :D

    Mitch
     
  15. Llamageddon

    Llamageddon MAP's weird cousin Supporter

    Not many people know, but the original address started 'eh, eh, calm down, calm down!'

    (sorry Americans, bit of an in joke I spose)
     
  16. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    I call false on all this.

    Mitch is NEVER in the background. No one puts baby in a corner.
     
  17. dormindo

    dormindo Active Member Supporter

    We aim to please. We don't always hit the mark, but we always aim to please.
     

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