<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class="">
<div><br class=""><div class="">Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">From: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">John Peck <<a href="mailto:familyfarmdefenders@yahoo.com" class="">familyfarmdefenders@yahoo.com</a>><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">Op Ed - Congress Must Kill The Trans Pacific Partnership</b><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">Date: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">February 6, 2016 at 3:25:50 PM EST<br class=""></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">To: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">Arthur Stamoulis <<a href="mailto:arthur@citizenstrade.org" class="">arthur@citizenstrade.org</a>><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">Reply-To: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">John Peck <<a href="mailto:familyfarmdefenders@yahoo.com" class="">familyfarmdefenders@yahoo.com</a>><br class=""></span></div><br class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 32px;" class=""><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27264" class=""><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27286" class="">Hello Arthur,</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27270" class=""><br class=""><span class=""></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27288" dir="ltr" class=""><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27287" class="">Just want you to know that one of our farmer members, Jim Goodman, just wrote this op ed against the TPP and we have been sending it around to the media. I'm sure a bunch of them will pick it up. Feel free to share it with other outlets as you wish.</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27291" dir="ltr" class=""><br class=""><span class=""></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27293" dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Thanks - John</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27306" dir="ltr" class=""><br class=""><span class=""></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27301" dir="ltr" class=""><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27309" class="">************************</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27302" class=""> <div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4794" class=""><big id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4793" class=""><b id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4792" class="">Congress Must Kill The Trans Pacific Partnership</b></big><br clear="none" class="">
</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_5457" class=""><br class=""></div><div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_5461" class="">By: Jim Goodman</div><div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_5462" class=""><br class=""></div><div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_9407" class="">Trade is good, but “free trade” doesn’t work for farmers or
workers or most everyone else. Free trade does, however, work
spectacularly well for corporations who have over <a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://www.flushthetpp.org/tpp-corporate-insiders/" class="">600
advisers</a> to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
negotiations —
we have no access to the negotiations, corporations have plenty.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_9409" class="">From a practical point of view it would make more sense if we
made
our own shoes and computers. We should grow less grain for
European
(and American) livestock and more food for ourselves. We could
actually pay workers here a fair wage and US workers could
afford to
buy US goods and perhaps own a home and send their kids to
college.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_9411" class="">In farm country we are told these trade deals will allow us to
export more goods and in so doing, increase our profits. I have
farmed for a good many years and I have, over the course of that
time, known many farmers, most of them who farm on a much larger
scale than I do. I have yet to meet a farmer who directly
exports
abroad, or even one who has the volume of product or operational
infrastructure to do so.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4789" class="">Farmers products ultimately end up in the hands of some
corporate
entity, a Multi-national Corporation which handles the
exporting/importing and generally takes most of the profit.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4788" class="">Free trade defines an agreement that has as a first (and
sometimes
only) priority, the best interests of corporations; namely,
their
profits. At what expense those profits are taken is apparently
of
little concern to the trade negotiators and in particular the
corporate representatives that are active participants in the
otherwise secretive TPP negotiations, or the other trade deals
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trade
in
Services Agreement (TISA).</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4787" class="">Fair trade, on the other hand, would put the interests of
people
and the environment ahead of corporate profit. Fair trade would
protect jobs rather than off-shoring them as has historically
happened after passage of all free trade agreements.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4786" class="">Free trade has no consideration for cultural preferences
because
it has no consideration for people. Japanese farmers and
consumers
prefer to grow and eat their traditional varieties of rice, not
imported rice — that should be their right, not so under the
TPP.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4785" class="">Food safety standards under free trade would, by design, fall
to
the lowest common denominator. Lower safety standards on food
imports, like lower labor safety standards, reduce operating
costs
and thus increase corporate profit.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4784" class="">Pharmaceutical companies would be granted extended monopoly
patents, thus increasing health care costs and access to generic
medications.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4783" class="">Banking interests insist on and will get, Financial Service
Agreements that would severely limit the ability of governments
to
restrict the trade of risky financial products or in general
their
ability to regulate “too big to fail” banks.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4782" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;" class="">Perhaps most
distressing to the U.S. economy, free trade agreements have
always
forced workers into a downward wage spiral. Jobs tend to flow to
wherever wages are the lowest. The TPP would set the stage for
member
countries like Vietnam with its $2.75 daily wage to become an
even
lower cost labor alternative than China.</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4781" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;" class=""><br clear="none" class="">
</div>
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4780" class="">I have watched and opposed these “free trade
agreements” for decades — they keep getting worse. In summary
they have:</div>
<ul id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4743" class=""><li id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4779" class="">
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4778" style="margin-bottom:0in;" class="">moved living wage jobs to
economies where they have become slave labor jobs.</div>
</li><li id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4777" class="">
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4776" style="margin-bottom:0in;" class="">busted unions and fired union
organizers</div>
</li><li id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4775" class="">
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4774" class="">devalued the place of women in agriculture</div>
</li><li id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4773" class="">
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4772" style="margin-bottom:0in;" class="">moved food production to
wherever food can be produced at the lowest cost</div>
</li><li id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4771" class="">
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4770" style="margin-bottom:0in;" class="">increased food imports to the
extent that food safety inspections are nearly non-existent</div>
</li><li id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4769" class="">
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4768" style="margin-bottom:0in;" class="">aggressively promoted GMO's
(genetically modified organisms) and the corporations that
produce them</div>
</li><li id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4767" class="">
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4766" style="margin-bottom:0in;" class="">pushed US agriculture into a
system of commodity cropping and CAFO's (confined animal
feeding operations)</div>
</li><li id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4765" class="">
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4764" style="margin-bottom:0in;" class="">pushed indigenous farmers
worldwide off the land and into urban slums</div>
</li><li id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4742" class="">
<div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4741" style="margin-bottom:0in;" class="">made farm workers and livestock
expendable commodities</div>
</li></ul>
<div dir="ltr" id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_4740" class="">Each trade agreement gets worse, each trade agreement takes
away our control, each trade agreement shifts wealth upward and
leaves the world more impoverished.</div><div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_5499" class=""><div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_9437" class=""> </div><div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_5498" class="">-------------<br class=""></div></div><div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_18313" dir="ltr" class=""><div id="yiv3026044939yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_23290" dir="ltr" class=""><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_28148" dir="ltr" class="">Jim Goodman is a dairy farmer from Wonewoc, WI and a member of Family Farm Defenders</div></div></div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454789045851_27303" class="signature"><br class=""></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>