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back to article TPPA so deep a secret not even the minister knows what’s in it

Australia’s bureaucrats appear to have learned the lesson from ACTA’s slow-motion train wreck in Europe, and aren’t letting the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) anywhere near something as unpredictable as a parliament. Under questioning by The Greens’ Senator Scott Ludlam, the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and …

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  1. Ryan 7

    Did the front fall off?

    I'd just liek to make it clear that the front isn't usually supposed to fall off.

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  2. John 98

    An international treaty drafted and negotiated by lobbyists without any democratic control at all ...

    Aux armes, citoyens (The Frogs are right for once)

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  3. mhenriday
    Holmes

    I have often wondered why

    so-called «political scientists» have such difficulty distinguishing between «democracy» and «plutocracy». But on the other hand, as Upton Beall Sinclair observed, «[i]t is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it»....

    Henri

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  4. Graham Wilson
    Mushroom

    In recent years I've come to understand.

    Until recently, I never really understood why in 1789 the French went as mad as they did. To me, 'The Terror' was an extreme reaction to authority which always seemed perplexing--that is until recently.

    There comes a time when you realise just how fucked democracy truly is and it's the deception over the TPPA, ACTA and such that brings it home like a sledgehammer on the forehead. More to the point is how we're all conned into believing that democracy is the popular rule of the majority. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    If we're to stop this deception and secrecy, then the upper echelons of the bureaucracy and the diplomatic service have to be smashed wide open. Clearly, the people who run this country are not accountable to anyone and one wonders in whose interest they're really acting.

    I'll stop here. If I say any more then I'm likely to be charged with sedition (that's just one of the ways we plebs are kept under control).

    Witness WikiLeaks, that's what happens by stepping out of line or from asking too many 'unreasonable' and embarrassing questions.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The Terror"

    The Terror period happened because all society structures were destroyed and nothing was replacing them. Many had a pretty good idea of what they wanted, but no one could agree and the whole revolution was in shambles in a matter of years, the society having gone from absolute power to absolute anarchy. The pendulum having swung all the way to the other extreme, some stabilisation was needed, and it had to be authoritarian as no one could agree. Think of Egypt or Tunisia now, but an order of magnitude messier since: there was no model to follow (except for the French-aided American revolution), and the other European countries were pretty keen to stop this democracy non-sense dead in its tracks.

    And yes, absolute power is creeping back.

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