TTIP..???

[Lord Percy]

Been hearing this mentioned loads but nothing of any substance, other than people saying it's a bad thing.

Does anyone know anything about it?

Here's what Jonathan Pie thinks.

German MPs given 2 hours to look over 300 page TTIP document in ultra-secret TTIP reading oom.

Telegraph - What is TTIP and why is it so controversial?

Q&A on the European Commission website - seems to make it seem less insidious than the media and protesters make it out to be, although at the bottom of the page where it addresses the issue of privatised public services, it seems to quite clearly state that if a government decides to privatise more stuff then it's their own choice and the EU has no control. That's fair enough, though they seem to avoid any mention of whether the TTIP deal makes things easier for private companies (really big American ones) to get their foot in.

So... thoughts..?

[Im-a-Ridah]

[Suntan Sid]

It's going to enshrine in law the unseen, behind closed doors, brown envelope, "lobbying" that our current political party donors already practice.

What it boils down to is, government policy will, inevitably, be dictated by "global mega corp inc" who will be blackmailing governments into doing their bidding and there'll be sweet FA anyone or any elected government can do about it!

No doubt, we can look forward to more PFI type schemes, designed purely to divert the maximum amount of cash, from the public coffers, into the bottomless pockets of our, squeaky clean, private sector!
____________________
"Everybody needs money, that's why they call it money!"

[Lord Percy]

I was thinking similar really. I want to be optimistic and say surely the entire European parliament will do things in the best interest of the people, but the hush-hush nature of it is definitely weird.

[Rob Fzs]

[Lord Percy]

[Im-a-Ridah]

[Im-a-Ridah]

[Ribenapigeon]

Civilisation costs, end of. Ever been to the US where they try to do it on the cheap? everything there is cheap and shit and made from cheese and cardboard, from their cars to Trumps wig.

[skatefreak]

Its impossible to tell what anything is anymore...
Newspapers for a start are well and truly pointless.
They all twist and distort everything so far to their own bias that its impossible to weed out actual facts about anything.
They make wild claims and misrepresent data/information/actual spoken words to turn things around.

I think I've lost faith in just about all media now.

Where do we go? Where do we turn when half our news sources are saying xyz and the other half abc?

People are no longer informed of facts but are given the ideological interpretation of their subscribed bias, of what may have happened.

Is it so dire we are going to have to go digging through legislation etc just to verify who's telling the truth.

The scary thing is the number of people who believe 'their' subscribed new source is giving them unbiased, transparent facts and react accordingly?!

Why is there such a divide? Can no one take the middle ground and represent the facts? There's no hope whilst the paid off BBC spout out their propaganda, our prime minister is making it up as he goes along and the immigration crisis is so over hyped you would think Berlin is in flames as we speak?

Not sure where I'm going with this...

Just ranting because it seems each newspaper makes it up as they go along and to many people believe what the read! Especially the BBC and politicians?!?!

[Ribenapigeon]

The problem with so called news media is its not news, its editorial and represents a view. They don't call it a "news story" without reason. I call the news we get fed a novelisation of reality. Its the old cat stuck up a tree "story", it has tension, will kitty die?, emotion, poor kitties owner distraught, there's a hero, the fireman and action as our hero climbs the tree. Everything gets wrapped up neatly in the end until the next kitty gets stuck up a tree or on a ledge or in a cavity wall etc.

[smegballs]

[Lord Percy]

This is another one of those things I find scary and fascinating in equal measure.

We stand here, proud of our 'free country', 'democracy', 'free press', yet it quite blatantly isn't as clear cut as that.

And so you have to ask what's worse of the two extremes: State-controlled propaganda news? Or privately controlled, ultra-biased, agenda-pushing, profit-motivated news?

Take your pick!

[skatefreak]

Well,
according to the Independent's perspective, TTIP is essentially aimed at privatization en mass, EU wide...
Handing everything over to big business on a golden platter... no doubt to ram their own as well as big business pockets.

If that is indeed where this is going then why on earth would any of us 'peons' throughout the EU want to be involved in such a thing? Unless of course those set to make mega bucks off it tell us its for our own good that is

Things really are well and truly buggered beyond comprehension and it seems like most people don't even realize it or even care enough to think about it?

Blimey, I hate to think that we are the paranoid crazies in all this

[Im-a-Ridah]