My fellow progressive Boricuas,
As the argument I make is a bitter pill to swallow, I need to present additional supporting evidence so that you will consider the facts more and your emotions less.
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Caveat: I am assuming that my fellow progressive Boricuas operate primarily based on reason and rationality and hence swayed by the best available evidence. Emotion is at best a back seat driver that annoyingly doesn’t give good directions, but your glad to have their company. That said, the job of a responsible colleague is to present a case. The case is not so much on emotion but again, the best available evidence. I assume this evidence will be evaluated on its merits and considered with the possible outcome of changing opinions if the preponderance of evidence is convincing.
HOWEVER, if on the other hand, no amount of evidence will sway you, please close your browser window as I am not speaking to you. If evidence is not part of your mental toolkit, then you are what I would describe as an unreasonable person. You are more religious-minded, closed to reason, rationality and evidence and no amount of persuading will impact your thoughts. Rather like current day Trump supporters I would argue …impervious to facts.
Yes, Yes, I know…. you may claim to make your decisions based on reason while you foam at the mouth at me, but deep down, past the raging tormenta of emotions roiling at the surface, you know you’re not listening and you know intimately whatever emotional reason you have that is driving you like Ben Hur on his chariot.
Sorry I have to say this, but I’ve been around the block enough to know my audience. I have to set the standard of this discussion. Don’t like the heat, kitchen door is to the right. Cuidate mucho.
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Caveat’s aside, I present to you the words of one of the paragons or USA progressivism today, a widely loved and much respected woman who leads the charge on many issues of importance to progressives.
In her opinion piece “The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose” by the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren on February 25, 2015, she says as follows…
“The United States is in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive free-trade agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries. Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the world?
One strong hint is buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft. The provision, an increasingly common feature of trade agreements, is called “Investor-State Dispute Settlement,” or ISDS. The name may sound mild, but don’t be fooled. Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-settlement-language-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2015/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html
I would argue that Sen. Warren is making a very similar argument as K.Wall in the previous article I cited. Economic globalization is adversely affecting national sovereignty.
An important point to make is not only is globalization affecting small developing countries and pseudo-countries (like PR), but it is doing the same thing on ALL countries!! EVEN G8 countries like the US and UK!!!
I would imagine that the degree of impact on countries is a gradient…the smaller the GDP, the higher the impact on sovereignty. Before globalization, sovereignty was more protected by GDP, after globalization, less. I’ve included a crude graph to show the relationship. I may have the scale wrong (this ain’t my area), but its more or less in the ball park I’d argue.
So as I see it folks… self determination, usually considered a prerequisite for securing the well being of a people, is being eroded for all human population groups! The smaller the group, the quicker the erosion. With the economic crisis and Zika, Borinken is getting smaller literally everyday!!
We have to find another MTAE than National Sovereignty. Towards that end, I’d suggest we look closely at the thinking of the global justice, anti-TPP etc. movements as in that cauldron is probably the best place a tasty answer will be served.
Tags: Globalization, sovereignty, Status, TPP
pepitothinking 