All things in their time--TPP-all things in their time.

It is all over the news.  It has created a schism between the liberal and progressive democrats.  It has the fond attention of the republicans.  It is up for vote with something called "fast-track" stuck to the middle of it.  Our president wants it and the house has passed it in a state hooked to all kinds of things that sound a little scary, like using medicare funds.

I have tried to read about it.  To get myself informed so I can make an intelligent, rational decision about this thing that is causing all the hoopla.  I have learned little.  The actual agreement is not available for review by us lowly people out there listening and deciding what we think about it all.

Lots of people are for it, some are whole-heartedly for it.  Some are against it because they want a return to "buy american". 

Then there are those like me.  I just want to know what it is.  I want to shine a flashlight into the nooks and crannies to see if there are holes or spiders or boogie men hiding in its highly secretive pages.  How can a law that will affect the country I live in and therefore the people I love and care about and work with and have obligations too NOT be my business.

If the "buy american" crowd is right, and yes they are still shopping at Walmart in their support of their cause, although those Walton kids gave up on that decades ago, then this agreement will take even more of our product making jobs to those overseas. 

If those touting that our labor is as cheap or cheaper than the labor overseas, that means we will have a harder time raising the minimum wage for fear of losing more jobs.  And while the better ranked countries (you know, better cost of living, better standard of living, better education system etc, etc,) won't steal our jobs, those places that have child labor, slave labor, no minimum wage labor, will still be cheaper to make things in.

If we want to be global, we need to help those people being trafficked to factories and those children only valued for their labor and those individuals only seen as an attractively low cost alternative to machines and robotics.  None of those terms have ever been words people that feel loved and cared for, powerful and esteemed, use to describe themselves.

See, I don't just care about our country--I want everyone's life to be a good life.  If I can't save them from themselves, I can at least try to stop them from being victimized by politics, powermongers and corporate greed.  We should all have a chance in which our only enemy is our own occasionally poor choices.

But back to the TPP.  I don't know why it is a secret.  I don't know what is being placed in it that has our President siding with the very people that have fought him for the past 6 years.  I don't know why the people that love to fight immigration, safety nets for the poor, taxes on the rich, and no restrictions on corporate lobbying or tax evasion are so whole heartedly for this.

I DON"T KNOW.

And that is why it I think it needs to set unpassed until we all know what it really says.