Comic Book Explains The Transpacific Partnership
February 19th, 2014After shoveling until 11pm last night, today's post was going to be about the relentless tyranny of snow - but happily, here's something more interesting.
Yesterday, BoingBoing pointed to a new comic book called The Transpacific Partnership and "Free Trade," that explains, in understandable comic book fashion, the secretly-being-negotiated-behind-closed-doors Transpacific Partnership trade treaty. If you've been picking up on the snippets of news about the TPP that have been leaked in the past months, you may have a general feeling that the TPP is A Bad Thing. Not unlike the relentless tyranny of snow.
Bad, but how? Well, this comic does an excellent job of explaining - not only why it's bad, but how. And how bad. Here's one example, about Intellectual property:
The 27-page comic is by Michael Goodwin and illustrated by Dan E. Burr, and really is excellent. Even for someone with no economics knowledge, it helps breakdown how international trade works, what "free trade" is and is not, and how the TPP would fit in. It also examines the current political environment in which things like this can exist.
Even if you don't read the whole thing, at least read up to the part where corporations can dictate laws in other countries by suing those governments that have laws the corporations don't like.
Spoiler alert: this already happens under NAFTA. Also under NAFTA, it snows. A lot.
