WE’RE ALL SINKING ON THE SAME BARGE

By Dawn M. Sanders

So, yet another secret trade deal (if you can actually call it a deal) is snaking its way out of secrecy.

The TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) via the TPA (Trade Proposal Authority) is firmly in the news and out of the bag.

Thank the goddess for the likes of WikiLeaks, because it’s not just yet another dodgy deal in the name of ‘big business’ it’s an outright attack on personal freedoms – infringing on individual human rights.

So pretty soon, the West in all its coy, covert behind-the-scenes manoeuvres, will render us all as held to ransom and dictated to as those held hostage in the Middle East – with Western-propped up dictators and unruly regimes.

Anyone with two brain cells to rub together, knows we are living under a fledgling democratic system, which makes it easy for vote-rigging/manipulation to occur, the minute there is threat of revolt.

Okay, so this is a trans-Pacific deal and doesn’t include the UK, but they’re all one in the same – we have TTIP to battle against – the trans-Atlantic deal, which includes Europe, the UK and US.

I’m confused though, the article referenced at the bottom of this blog, says it was narrowly blocked, yet twitter trending said it passed?

If Obama wanted to create a legacy of pumping life into the US economy or giving adequate healthcare to the poorest, he is unravelling it all for a last ditch bid for victory, as an exiting has been – consigned to the throws of history.

As cultural and economic divide is ever-increasing, suspicion and hate are rife and the cap on personal freedoms (in the name of health and safety or duty-of-care) are diseases spreading like devouring plagues.

I don’t want to sound like, all doom and gloom, but as I sit in my garden, with a warm persistent breeze, the sun shining on a Saturday afternoon, I’m also sitting on a knife edge.

Bombarded with plea after plea in my inbox to: sign this petition to stop that, I can’t keep up with it all anymore.

What about my own personal battle for my rights and freedoms?  Sounds selfish I know, but with my recent harassment, yet again from Sheffield social services (or ‘dis-services) as I like to dub them, I just about keep my head above water…

Being a single mum and visually impaired, with a kid with complex needs – I’m cursed by the authorities three times over – no matter how much I try to count my blessings.

It’s enlightening to hear of all the youthful gumption and enthusiasm of the student Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (CAFC) but right now I’m debating my own personal campaign and starting a petition.

You know the kind via thirty-eight degrees (that people-powered thing that’s going on, but I’m not too optimistic and, would local authorities really become more accountable and think before they harass or bully people, just because they’re ‘different’?

I strongly doubt it, yet I can’t sit idly by and just ‘let it happen.

I don’t hope to single-handedly change the world, because it’s an ongoing, uphill collective struggle and, the only ones “all in this together” are those of us who constantly fight, fight, fight for equality, human dignity, a slice at the pie; all the things the pigs, sitting around the top table, take for granted.

We’re all sinking on the same barge, so we may as well have a laugh, make it a party where, we all go down having the last laugh and fighting to the bitter end…

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/12/trans-pacific-partnership-explainer