Trans Pacific Partnership stalls in US House of Reps

One big fat poke in the eye is what he got on Friday.

And it didn't come from the Republican Party. No ma'am. It was hand delivered by those members of his own Democratic Party who remembered just how they got their jobs in Washington D.C. and who put them there: the 99%.

The "he" above, is the President of the United States, Barack Obama. And the poke refers to the "hang on pal, we're not cutting you a blank cheque to negotiate the Trans Pacific Partnership on our behalf. No way".

Opponents of the TPP leaned on their representatives in Washington to ruin a measure which would have given POTUS a clear expressway-like run to finalise the biggest trade deal you've never heard of by requiring, in the fullness of time, little more than a thumbs-up or thumbs-down vote by lawmakers. Doesn't sound like participatory democracy now does it?

Many Americans believe that castrating Congress' ability to vet the TPP, line item by line item is a sell out to special interests. In the light of the numerous cloaks and daggers that have accompanied what little official discussion that has transpired on the matter by the Obama administration, who can blame the public for their suspicions?

Working Americans both unionised and not, feared that whatever the overall benefits to the economy, the looming deal would hasten the economy wide extinction of good paying jobs.

Like bees to honey, the TPP will encourage US manufacturers to move jobs abroad where labour laws are derisory, at the expense of American jobs and then import those goods back to the United States, generating very healthy profits for corporations by not lowering the retail price of goods even though production costs have fallen through the floor.

The House of Representatives may revisit the legislation in the next few days and grant Obama "fast track" authority, but its long odds that POTUS and his enforcers can twist so many arms in his own party in such a short period of time to give him the win he desperately wants.

So how did Organised Labour manage to persuade sufficient Democrats to stand up to their President on Friday? Did it do much more than coax fellow leftist groups to join its fight? Did wealthy conservative donors who shared the union movements' motivation make the difference?

Did it flex its muscle to stare down lawmakers?

All of the above, but that's only part of the story.

Organised Labor's success is more a product of many Americans on the left and right putting their collective feet down and speaking up against what is sold by TPP lobbyists.

More and more Americans understand that while the TPP superficially offers a "good" deal, it offers it to Big Business and the 1%. After all, if it offered everyone a real fillip then why the secrecy? Why the inclusion of the anti-consumer, anti-national sovereignty "investor state disputes settlement" provision into the misnamed 'partnership'?

Last week's msnbc poll exposed just what the public thinks of the trade bill. In short, most Americans no longer support what is commonly sold to them as "free trade". Because they've cottoned on to the fact that there is nothing "free" about it. Unless we're talking about the amount of time millions holding insecure blue and white-collar jobs could soon have on their hands.

Americans are angry over the chronic growing inequality between the "haves" and the "never will haves", which they see as the product of the success of American corporations growing shareholder value at the expense of American jobs. A product enabled by insiders in Washington.

The "jobless recovery" is one such economic term that explains economic growth and the fattening of corporate profits while holding steady or even slimming down employment.

Those on the left and the right opposing the trade bill have separately accused the Obama administration of undue secrecy and stretching the limits of his power.

Some on the right are positively glowing in their praise of those, who on most issues are their opponents. "The left is using the language I use," said Richard Manning, president of the conservative group called Americans for Limited Government.

And another, Jusdon Phillips, head of Tea Party Nation, one of the several tea party groups, puts it: "There are some areas where the guys on the left-unions and others-get it right, and this is one of those issues".

It takes a particular kind of legislation to compel members of the left and the right to travel to Washington see the whites of their lawmakers' eyes and say: "yes, we agree the TPP will grow the 'economy', that is revenues of American firms operating both at home and abroad. But at the cost of just how many American jobs"?

These folk want nothing less than a better deal for America's workers.

America's 99% are not troublemakers. They are not calling for a violent revolution. They are the little people, millions of little people who for years have played by the rules, did what they were told, and now have diddly-squat to show for it.

They just want their democracy back.

Australia's 99% are surely no different in their history, their expectations and their demands.

But it's hard to tell with their media's laryngitis on this issue.