Meanwhile, let’s hope the last one out of the GridEx 2 simulation exercise turns North America’s lights back on.

Chinese troops will have boots on the ground in Hawaii on Tuesday

By Judi McLeod (Bio and Archives) Friday, November 8, 2013

Aloha Hawaiians! If you see what you think are soldiers from the Communist Peoples Republic of China Army wandering about in your neck of the woods Tuesday through Thursday next week, your imagination is not playing tricks on you.

For the first time in history the U.S. Army will host the Communist Peoples Republic of China’s Army on American soil Nov. 12-14, 2013.

But don’t worry while Chinese soldiers will have boots on the ground in Hawaii, they are only really “simulating”.

“Simulating humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to a fictional third country”.

You can’t make this stuff up whenGridEx 2 is doing it for you.

GridEx 2 (there was already a GridEx 1in November of 2011) is a massive ‘emergency drill’ planned to take place across the whole of North America with thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, FBI antiterrorism experts and officials from government agencies, in the United States, Canada and Mexico (who) are preparing for an emergency drill in November that will simulate physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid. (New York Times, Aug. 16, 2013).

The exercise is touted as a unified move “to test the resiliency of the U.S. power grid to withstand major damage causes by a natural disaster or deliberate attack”.

“Fears about the possible detonation of a nuclear warhead in the skies about the United States, for the purposes of creating an electromagnetic pulse aimed at sizzling electronics on the ground, have led a number of public figures to call for significant steps to strengthen the power grid. Ex-CIA head R. James Woolsey is planing a campaign to convince state governments to pass laws requiring utilities to harden their electronics against potential EMP attacks.

“A key objective of GridEx 2 is to learn how governments would handle a loss of electrical power that is large enough to drastically affect the delivery of common and essential goods and services.” (NYT)

Hoping that the U.S., Canada or Mexico aren’t GridEx 2’s “fictional third country” and that the soldiers out on reconnaissance in Blue Hawaii don’t stamp ‘Made in China’ on it.

The New York Times reported on GridEx 2’s massive, Nov. 13-14 drill on August 16, but never mentioned the participation of the Peoples Republic of China’s Army.

China’s Xinhua Agencies kicked in on November 6 reporting that American and Chinese soldiers will train together in the November exercise.

“The US military Pacific Commander, Samuel Locklear, said here Tuesday that a joint humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise to be held this month helps improve the relationship between the United States and China.” (Xinhua Agencies, Nov. 6, 2013)

”Locklear told a news briefing that the Pacific Command’s Army component commander in Hawaii has been looking forward to the Nov. 12-14 exercises “for some time”, as the Army will host the People’s Liberation Army soldiers of China to train together in a field environment, simulating humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to a fictional third country.

“Summing up his expectations for the joint exercise, Locklear said both militaries can learn something in disaster management and “better prepare tomorrow than yesterday”.

“In relation to our ability to do this with our Chinese counterparts”, he said, “this kind ofexercise gives us a place to start, and get into the rhythm of understanding and trusting each other.”

“The joint exercise was announced during an August visit to Washington by Chinese Minister of National Defense Chang Wanquan, as China and the United States expand their military-to-military relationship and explore cooperation opportunities in non-traditional security areas.”

On August 19, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel escorted China Minister of National Defense Gen. Wanquan during an honor cordon at the Pentagon.

In a same day press conference, Gen. Wanquan said China’s military has never supported any hacker actions, expressing at the joint press conference that the cyber space is a new field and cyberspace security threats have become a world wide problem. “China is one of the major victims of hacker attacks, suffering serious threats from network attacks,” he said.

Meanwhile, let’s hope the last one out of the GridEx 2 simulation exercise turns North America’s lights back on.

China Deploys New Bomber with Long-Range Land Attack Missile

Bill Gertz FreeBeacon, November 7, 2013 4:35 pm

China’s military recently deployed an upgraded strategic bomber that will carry the military’s new long-range land attack cruise missile, capable of attacking Hawaii and Guam, according to a draft congressional report.

The Oct. 8 draft of the forthcoming report of the U.S.-China Economic and SecurityReview Commission also reveals that China has developed a new armed drone nearly identical to U.S. military’s Reaper. The Chinese missile-firing drone likely was developed through Chinese cyber espionage against U.S. defense contractors.

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Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and Glenn Beck.

Judi can be emailed at:judi@canadafreepress.com

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NatGeoTV: American BlackOut, a Lesson to Lessen Our Coming Misery

   A nationwide electric power failure is realistically dramatized in this
National Geographic television docu-drama. Also, it is being televised in
late October and early November, synchronized to immediately precede a
U.S. Government national power blackout drill. This planned coincidence
shows that National Geographic TV is emotionally amplifying an apocalyptic
government prophesy by Janet Napolitano, Director of Homeland Security,
announcing that:
"a massive cyber attack and a natural disaster, the likes of which have
   never been seen before, are coming." [ABC-News]
How would government officials know of a cyber-attack conspiracy unless
government officials are involved in such a criminal conspiracy?
   Combine this apocalyptic federal prophesy with its companion TV docu-
drama -- then combine that dual public panic stimulant with the federal drill
simulating (or stimulating) the loss of electrical power, nationwide. Then
consider its disturbing effect on the public psyche in conjunction with the fact
that, in mid-2001, scary government predictions of an attack, and a prophetic
TV dramatization (The X-Files "Lone Gunman" episode, depicting a passenger
plane being crashed, by terrorists, into the World Trade Center), were followed
by a federal drill at the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11th,
conducted to coincide with the actual airplane attacks, in order to confuse and
paralyze programmed defensive military routines! Voluminous forensic
research over the past twelve years has proved that a criminal shadow
government perpetrated these wholesale atrocities. These attacks were all too
promptly and duplicitously blamed on the Arabs, in order to justify invasions
and occupations of Arab nations, ongoing for twelve years now, with no end
in sight.
   Today, the big banksters appear to be preparing to collapse the dollar and
revoke the right of depositors to take possession of their own savings. A
highly publicized terrorist electric power failure, nationwide, would surely
allow the big banksters to say,
"Oh well, those nasty Arab terrorists have disabled our computerized
   banking system, and that's why we cannot give you your money."
Furthermore, this massive technically complex operation to darken and
deaden our entire nation of three hundred million people will so thoroughly
fragment and paralyze the American people that they will be utterly helpless,
and thus, unable to thwart this nationwide seizure of their life's savings by
the big banking scoundrels, who have historically demonstrated a talent for
such devious grand larceny -- in this case, the grandest of all grand larcenies.
John DiNardo
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHvNLM9UKgA

The U.S. Government officially prophesies a nationwide power failure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45MSuW6yfeM

Jim Hightower: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Is a Corporate Coup in Disguise

JIM HIGHTOWER ON BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

What if our national leaders told us that communities across America had to eliminate such local programs as Buy Local, Buy American, Buy Green, etc. to allow foreign corporations to have the right to make the sale on any products purchased with our tax dollars? This nullification of our people's right to direct expenditures is just one of the horror stories in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

This is a super-sized NAFTA, the 1994 trade scam rammed through Congress by the entire corporate establishment. NAFTA promised the "glories of globalization": prosperity across our land. Unfortunately, corporations got the gold. We got the shaft — thousands of factories closed, millions of middle-class jobs went south, and the economies of hundreds of towns and cities were shattered.

Twenty years later, the gang that gave us NAFTA is back with the TPP, a "trade deal" that mostly does not deal with trade. Of the 29 chapters in this document, only five cover traditional trade matters! The other chapters amount to a devilish "partnership" for corporate protectionism:

—Food safety. Any of our government's food safety regulations (on pesticide levels, bacterial contamination, fecal exposure, toxic additives, etc.) and food labeling laws (organic, country-of-origin, animal-welfare approved, GMO-free, etc.) that are stricter than "international standards" could be ruled as "illegal trade barriers." Our government would then have to revise our consumer protections to comply with weaker standards.

—Fracking. Our Department of Energy would lose its authority to regulate exports of natural gas to any TPP nation. This would create an explosion of the destructive fracking process across our land, for both foreign and U.S. corporations could export fracked gas from America to member nations without any DOE review of the environmental and economic impacts on local communities — or on our national interests.

—Jobs. US corporations would get special foreign-investor protections to limit the cost and risk of relocating their factories to low-wage nations that sign onto this agreement. So, an American corporation thinking about moving a factory would know it is guaranteed a sweetheart deal if it moves operations to a TPP nation like Vietnam. This would be an incentive for corporate chieftains to export more of our middle-class jobs.

—Drug prices. Big Pharma would be given more years of monopoly pricing on each of their patents and be empowered to block distribution of cheaper generic drugs. Besides artificially keeping everyone's prices high, this would be a death sentence to many people suffering from cancer, HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis and other treatable diseases in impoverished lands.

—Banksters. Wall Street and the financial giants in other TPP countries would make out like bandits. The deal explicitly prohibits transaction taxes (such as the proposed Robin Hood Tax here) that would shut down speculators who have repeatedly triggered financial crises and economic crashes around the world. It restricts "firewall" reforms that separate consumer banking from risky investment banking. It could roll back reforms that governments adopted to fix the extreme bank-deregulation regimen that caused Wall Street's 2007 crash. And it provides an escape from national rules that would limit the size of "too-big-to-fail" behemoths.

—Internet freedom. Corporations hoping to lock up and monopolize the Internet failed in Congress last year to pass their repressive "Stop Online Piracy Act." However, they've slipped SOPA's most pernicious provisions into TPP. The deal would also transform Internet service providers into a private, Big Brother police force, empowered to monitor our "user activity," arbitrarily take down our content and cut off our access to the Internet. To top that off, consumers could be assessed mandatory fines for something as benign as sending your mom a recipe you got off of a paid site.

—Public services. TPP rules would limit how governments regulate such public services as utilities, transportation and education — including restricting policies meant to ensure broad or universal access to those essential needs. One insidious rule says that member countries must open their service sectors to private competitors, which would allow the corporate provider to cherry-pick the profitable customers and sink the public service.

Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch, correctly calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership "a corporate coup d'etat." Nations that join must conform their laws and rules to TPP's strictures, effectively supplanting U.S. sovereignty and canceling our people's right to be self-governing. Worse, it creates virtually permanent corporate rule over us.

Is it impossible to stop? Nope. There is also a broad, well-organized and politically experienced coalition of grassroots groups, which has stopped other deals and will do it again. We the people can protect our democratic rights from this threat of corporate usurpation. Check out globaltradewatch.org.

(Photo: cool revolution)

COPYRIGHT 2013 CREATORS.COM

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the decline of American hegemony

Published: October 1, 2013

By Clyde Prestowitz — Foreign Policy

WASHINGTON — Just as events in Syria are demonstrating a huge shift in American foreign-policy doctrine in the Middle East, so are recent developments in the Asia-Pacific region signaling the same kind of shift there.

In Syria, it has become clear that the United States will no longer intervene just for the sake of

enforcing its will wherever turmoil arises. Of course, this move is also a sign of the end of American hegemony. In the case of East Asia, the Obama administration’s major policy initiative has been the so-called “pivot to Asia,” and the centerpiece of that has been negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement. Although the free trade label sounds boring, the deal is not really about trade. Rather, it is about assuring Asian friends that America is still committed to them.

That’s what U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and the State Department have been saying for the past couple of years. It sounds good. Who can object to assuring our friends of our commitment to them? But that bland, motherhood-and-apple-pie reassuring veils something of deeper significance. As a high-ranking Singaporean official once explained to me, China “is like a new sun in the solar system, and all the planets 1 / 8countries 3 / 8 are readjusting their orbits.” His concern and that of most other countries in East Asia and the Pacific is that his country will become fixed in the Chinese orbit with no counterweight to allow some freedom of action. What he wanted was for America to be the counterweight against China. What Froman is really saying is that America will indeed act as the counterweight. This is an expression of American hegemony in East Asia and the Pacific.

That the TPP is not just about trade is signaled by the fact that the negotiations over it have been held in strict secrecy. Few, including members of U.S. Congress who eventually must sign off on the deal, have any idea of what is actually in the draft agreement. But what definitely is not there is any provision to deal with the problem of currency manipulation.

Let me briefly explain that. A number of countries, through a combination of jawboning and using government funds to buy dollars in the international currency markets, act to keep their own currencies artificially undervalued. This is a way to make their exports less expensive and their imports more expensive. It is totally at odds with any concept of free trade, but there are no provisions to deal with it in any of the free trade agreements Washington has negotiated. The World Trade Organization has some vague provisions that have never been enforced, and the same is true of the International Monetary Fund. Thus, a country can negotiate to reduce its tariffs from, say, 10 percent to 5 percent or even to 0. These are 50 percent or 100 percent reductions of the tariffs and would be hailed as a major move to free trade. But at the same time, the country could intervene in the currency markets to drive its currency down by 10 to 20 percent and thereby totally offset the effect of the free trade deal. Indeed, this is pretty much what Japan is doing now. While negotiating the TPP, Tokyo has managed to reduce the value of the yen by about 30 percent. Moreover, it has managed to do this without hearing any voice of complaint from its TPP negotiating partners. The other partners don’t complain because they mostly act in the same way. The United States doesn’t complain because, as I said, the deal is not about trade so much as about showing commitment to its Asian friends.

But last week saw what could be a very important development. Sixty senators wrote a letter to the U.S. president demanding that the problem of currency manipulation be addressed in the TPP negotiations before any deal is submitted to Congress for approval. This followed a similar action by members of the House of Representatives. The meaning of both actions is twofold. First, it signifies that as it now stands, the TPP deal may really not be able to gain passage through Congress. That is to say that the chances of its not being ratified are quite good. The second point of significance is that, as in the case of Syria, the U.S. Congress is telling the administration and the world that geopolitics no longer trump economic and domestic welfare considerations. Congress is saying that free trade deals now truly have to be about trade and not about reassuring allies of U.S. commitment to them. No longer will Congress agree to buy allies with distorted and lopsided trade deals.

The end of American hegemony will be mourned by many around the world and in America, but it is likely to be a very good thing for U.S. workers and the American middle class.

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/10/01/5265527/the-trans-pacific-partnership.html#storylink=cpy

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - United States Trade ...

www.ustr.gov/tpp - Similar to Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - United States Trade ...

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Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership

xx
${{{image_alt}}}$ Leaders of TPP member states and prospective member states at a TPP summit in 2010.
Type	Free trade agreement
Drafted	3 June 2005^[1]^[2]
Signed	18 July 2005^[3]^[4]^[5]
Location	Wellington, New Zealand
Effective	28 May 2006 (New Zealand and Singapore); 12 July 2006 (Brunei); 8 November 2006 (Chile)^[6]
Condition	2 ratifications
Parties	4 (Brunei, Chile, Singapore and New Zealand)
Depositary	Government of New Zealand
Languages	English and Spanish, in event of conflict English prevails

The 2005 Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4) is a controversial free trade agreement among Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore. It aims to further liberalise the economies of the Asia-Pacific region.^[7]

Since 2010, negotiations have been taking place^[8] for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposal for a significantly expanded version of TPSEP. The TPP is a proposed free trade agreement under negotiation by (as of August 2013) Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Japan,^[9] Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.^[10]

The TPP is ostensibly intended to be a "high-standard" agreement specifically aimed at emerging trade issues in the 21st century.^[11] These ongoing negotiations have drawn criticism and protest from the public, advocacy groups, and elected officials, in part due to the secrecy of the negotiations, the expansive scope of the agreement, and a number of controversial clauses in drafts leaked to the public.

Membership and accession[edit]

Current P-4 countries

Negotiating countries

The negotiations initially included three countries (Chile, New Zealand and Singapore), and Brunei subsequently joined the agreement. The original TPSEP agreement contains an accession clause and affirms the members' "commitment to encourage the accession to this Agreement by other economies."

In January 2008 the United States agreed to enter into talks with the P4 members regarding liberalisation of trade in financial services.^[12] Then, on 22 September 2008, US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab announced that the United States would begin negotiations with the P4 countries to join the TPP, with the first round of talks conducted in early 2009.^[13]

In November 2008, Australia, Vietnam, and Peru announced that they would be joining the P4 trade bloc.^[14]^[15] In October 2010, Malaysia announced that it had also joined the TPP negotiations.^[16]^[17]^[18]

In June 2012, it was announced that Canada and Mexico would join TPP negotiations.^[19]^[20]^[21]^[22]^[23] Mexico's interest in joining was initially met with concern among TPP negotiators about its customs policies.^[24]

Two years earlier, Canada became an observer in the TPP talks, and expressed interest in officially joining,^[25] but was not committed to join, purportedly because the United States and New Zealand blocked it due to concerns over Canadian agricultural policy—specifically dairy—and intellectual property rights protection.^[24]^[26] Several pro-business and internationalist Canadian media outlets raised concerns about this as a missed opportunity. In a feature in the Financial Post, former Canadian trade negotiator Peter Clark claimed that the Harper Government had been strategically outmaneuvered by the Obama Administration, Wendy Dobson and Diana Kuzmanovic for The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, argued for the economic necessity of the TPP to Canada.^[27] Embassy warned that Canada's position in APEC could be compromised by being excluded from both the US-oriented TPP and the proposed China-oriented ASEAN +3 trade agreement (or the broader Comprehensive Economic Partnership for East Asia).^[17]^[18]^[28]

Canada and Mexico formally became TPP negotiating participants in October 2012, following completion of the domestic consultation periods of the other nine members.^[29]^[30]^[31^]

Members[edit]

Country	Status	Date
Brunei	Original Signatory	June 2005
Chile	Original Signatory	June 2005
New Zealand	Original Signatory	June 2005
Singapore	Original Signatory	June 2005
United States	Negotiating	February 2008
Australia	Negotiating	November 2008
Peru	Negotiating	November 2008
Vietnam	Negotiating	November 2008
Malaysia	Negotiating	October 2010
Mexico	Negotiating	October 2012
Canada ^[32]	Negotiating	October 2012
Japan	Negotiating	March 2013

Taiwan

Potential members[edit]

currently in negotiations

announced interest in membership

Japan joined as an observer in the TPP discussions that took place 13–14 November 2010, on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Yokohama.^[33] Japan declared its intent to join the TPP negotiations on 13 March 2013 and an official announcement was made by Prime Minister Shinzō Abe on 15 March 2013 .^[34] The TPP formally invited Japan to enter negotiations in April,^[35] and Japan could become a full negotiating partner in August 2013.^[36]

South Korea expressed interest in joining in November 2010,^[37] and was officially invited to join the TPP negotiating rounds by the United States after the successful conclusion of the US-South Korea FTA in late December.^[38] The country already has bilateral trade agreements with other TPP members, thus making any further multilateral TPP negotiation less complicated.^{[citation
needed]}

Other countries that have expressed interest in TPP membership are Taiwan,^[39] the Philippines,^[40] Laos,^[41] Colombia,^[42] Costa Rica,^[41] and Indonesia.^[43] Bangladesh^[44] and India^[45] have also been mentioned as a possible candidate. Despite initial opposition, China also has some interest in eventually joining the TPP.^[46]

On 20 November 2012, Thailand's government announced that it wishes to join the Trans-Pacific partnership negotiations during a visit by President of the United States Barack Obama and if it follows the process for Canada and Mexico, Thailand will be in the extraordinary position of having to accept any existing agreed text, sight unseen.^[47^]

History[edit]

The TPSEP was previously known as the Pacific Three Closer Economic Partnership (P3-CEP), its negotiations launched on the sidelines of the 2002 APEC Leaders' Meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, by Prime Ministers Helen Clark of New Zealand, Goh Chok Tong of Singapore and Chilean President Ricardo Lagos. Brunei first took part as a full negotiating party in the fifth round of talks in April 2005, after which the trade bloc became known as the Pacific-4 (P4). Although all original and negotiating parties are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the TPSEP and TPP are not APEC initiatives. However, the TPP is considered to be a pathfinder for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), an APEC initiative.

The original agreement was concluded by Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore on 3 June 2005,^[2] and entered into force on 28 May 2006 for New Zealand and Singapore, 12 July 2006 for Brunei, and 8 November 2006 for Chile.^[48] It is a comprehensive free trade agreement, affecting trade in goods, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, trade in services, intellectual property, government procurement and competition policy. Among other things, it called for reduction by 90 percent of all tariffs between member countries by 1 January 2006, and reduction of all trade tariffs to zero by the year 2015.^[7]

On the last day of the 2010 APEC summit, leaders of the nine negotiating countries endorsed the proposal advanced by United States president Barack Obama that set a target for settlement of negotiations by the next APEC summit in November 2011.^[49] However, negotiations have continued through 2012 and into 2013.

Negotiations[edit]

After the inauguration of Barack Obama in January 2009, the anticipated March 2009 negotiations were postponed. However, in his first trip to Asia in November 2009, president Obama reaffirmed the United States' commitment to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and on 14 December 2009, new United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk notified Congress that president Obama planned to enter TPP negotiations "with the objective of shaping a high-standard, broad-based regional pact".^[50]

Since that time, 15 formal rounds of TPP negotiations have been held:^[51]^[52]

1st round: 15–19 March 2010, Melbourne, Australia

2nd round: 14–18 June 2010, San Francisco, USA

3rd round: 5–8 October 2010, Brunei

4th round: 6–10 December 2010, Auckland, New Zealand

5th round: 14–18 February 2011, Santiago, Chile

6th round: 24 March – 1 April 2011, Singapore

7th round: 15–24 June 2011, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

8th round: 6–15 September 2011, Chicago, USA

9th round: 22–29 October 2011, Lima, Peru

10th round: 5–9 December 2011, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

11th round: 2–9 March 2012, Melbourne, Australia

12th round: 8–18 May 2012, Dallas, USA

13th round: 2–10 July 2012. San Diego, USA

14th round: 6–15 September 2012, Leesburg, Virginia, USA

15th round: 3–12 December 2012, Auckland, New Zealand

16th round: 4–13 March 2013 Singapore

17th round: 15–24 May 2013, Lima, Peru

18th round: 15–24 July 2013, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

19th round: 23–30 August 2013, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

In the United States, the majority of free trade agreements are implemented as congressional-executive agreements.^[53] Unlike treaties, congressional-executive agreements require a majority of the House and Senate to pass.^[53] Under "Trade Promotion Authority" (TPA), established by the Trade Act of 1974, Fast track (trade) Congress authorizes the President to negotiate “free trade agreements... if they are approved by both houses in a bill enacted into public law and other statutory conditions are met.”^[53] In early 2012, the Obama administration indicated that a requirement for the conclusion of TPP negotiations is the renewal of "fast track" Trade Promotion Authority.^[54] If "fast track" is renewed, then the normal treaty ratification and implementation procedure would be bypassed, and the United States Congress would instead be required to introduce and vote on an administration-authored bill for implementing the TPP with minimal debate and no amendments, with the entire process taking no more than 90 days.^[55^]

Controversy[edit]

Scope[edit]

Anti-globalization advocates accuse the TPP of going far beyond the realm of tariff reduction and trade promotion, granting unprecedented power to corporations and infringing upon consumer, labour, and environmental interests.^[56]^[57]

One widely republished article claims the TPP is "a wish list of the 1%" and that "of the 26 chapters under negotiation, only a few have to do directly with trade. The other chapters enshrine new rights and privileges for major corporations while weakening the power of nation states to oppose them."^[57^]

Intellectual property provisions[edit]

There has been criticism^[58]^[59]^[60] of some provisions relating to the enforcement of patents and copyrights alleged to be present in leaked copies of the US proposal for the agreement:

The proposals have been accused of being excessively restrictive, providing intellectual property restraints beyond those in the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement and Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).^[61] A coalition of non-profit organisations, businesses and over 100,000 people have spoken out through a campaign called "Stop The Trap".

In spring 2013, over 30 Internet freedom organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and OpenMedia.ca, came together to call for a 'Fair Deal' on the TPP's intellectual property provisions. The coalition says proposals in the TPP would take a major toll on society, by restricting innovation and by forcing ISPs to police copyright. Over 15000 citizens have joined the Fair Deal campaign.

A number of United States Congresspeople,^[62] including Senator Bernard Sanders^[63] and Representatives Henry Waxman, Sander M. Levin, John Conyers, Jim McDermott,^[64] John Lewis, Pete Stark, Charles B. Rangel, Earl Blumenauer, and Lloyd Doggett,^[65] have expressed concerns about the effect the TPP requirements would have on access to medicine. In particular, they are concerned that the TPP focuses on protecting intellectual property to the detriment of efforts to provide access to affordable medicine in the developing world, particularly Vietnam, going against the foreign policy goals of the Obama administration and previous administrations.^[62] Additionally, they worry that the TPP would not be flexible enough to accommodate existing non-discriminatory drug reimbursement programs and the diverse health systems of member countries.^[65]

At a public forum on 6 July 2011, legal experts in New Zealand presented their concerns that the agreement could undermine law regarding Māori culture, genetic modification, copyright, and remove the subsidised medicine New Zealanders have access to through Pharmac.^[66]

Opponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership say US corporations are hoping to weaken Pharmac's ability to get inexpensive, generic medicines by forcing New Zealand to pay for brand name drugs.^[67] Doctors and organisations like Medicins Sans Frontieres have also expressed concern.^[68] The New Zealand Government denies the claims, Trade Negotiations Minister Tim Groser saying opponents of the deal are "fools" who are "trying to wreck this agreement".^[69]

Ken Akamatsu, creator of Love Hina and Mahou Sensei Negima!, expressed concern the agreement could decimate the derivative dōjinshi (self-published) works prevalent in Japan. Akamatsu argues that the TPP "would destroy derivative dōjinshi. And as a result, the power of the entire manga industry would also diminish." Kensaku Fukui, a lawyer and a Nihon University professor, expressed concerns that the TPP could allow companies to restrict or stop imports and exports of intellectual property, such as licensed merchandise. For example, IP holders could restrict or stop importers from shipping merchandise such as DVDs and other related goods related to an anime or manga property into one country to protect local distribution of licensed merchandise already in the country via local licensors.^[70]

At a NicoNico live seminar called How Would TPP Change the Net and Copyrights? An In-Depth Examination: From Extending Copyright Terms to Changing the Law to Allow Unilateral Enforcement and Statutory Damages, artist Kazuhiko Hachiya warned that cosplay could also fall under the TPP, and such an agreement could give law enforcement officials broad interpretive authority in dictating how people could dress up. Critics also have derided the agreement could also harm Japanese culture, where some segments have developed through parody works.^[71]

Moreover, on 19 September 2012, Suzanne Nossel, executive director for Amnesty International USA, stated that TPP negotiations should show the public their cards and the draft text of the agreement. She also felt apprehensive about the freedom of speech and health. This is because TPP has the risk of restraining development and production of generic medicine by protecting patents.

Negotiation secrecy

On February 28, 2012, 23 organizations concerned with openness, scientific integrity, and accountability sent a letter to President Obama urging him to increase the transparency of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiating process, arguing that public access is imperative given the fears that the compact may significantly limit public protections.^[72] The issues being negotiated extend include "patent and copyright, land use, food and product standards, natural resources, professional licensing, government procurement, financial practices, healthcare, energy, telecommunications, and other service sector regulations."^[73] The secret process would establish policies binding on future U.S. Congresses and state legislatures on numerous non-trade subjects. The letter demands transparency on the front end of the pact. The signatories to this letter included OpenTheGovernment.org, Project On Government Oversight - POGO and ARTICLE 19, Global Campaign for Freedom of Expression and Information, among others.

In May 2012, a group of 30 legal scholars, critical of the Office of the United States Trade Representative's "biased and closed" TPP negotiation process and proposed intellectual property-related provisions, publicly called upon Ambassador Kirk to uphold democratic ideals by reversing the "dialing back" of stakeholder participation and to release negotiating texts for public scrutiny. The law professors claimed that leaked documents show that the USTR is "pushing numerous standards that [...] could require changes in current U.S. statutory law" and that the proposal is "manifestly unbalanced—it predominantly proposes increases in proprietor rights, with no effort to expand the limitations and exceptions to such rights that are needed in the U.S. and abroad to serve the public interest."

The group claimed that the negotiations excluded stakeholders such as "consumers, libraries, students, health advocacy or patient groups, or others users of intellectual property" and that it only offered "minimal representation of other affected businesses, such as generic drug manufacturers or Internet service providers."^[74]

Kirk initially responded that he was "strongly offended by the assertion that our process has been non-transparent and lacked public participation" and that it was actually far more transparent than the negotiations for prior free trade agreements.^[75]

This prompted further criticism from the academic group that free-trade agreement negotiations, notorious for their secrecy, are "the wrong standard for assessing the legitimacy of the TPP intellectual property chapter negotiations. This is because the IP chapter in the TPP, like ACTA, is not a trade agreement. It does not adjust tariffs and quotas—it sets new international limits on domestic regulation, regardless of whether such regulation discriminates against, or even affects, trade."^[75] The group further reiterated its claim that the secretive process is antithetical to the ideals of democracy, and is "no way to engender trust and faith in international law making with such a broad impact."^[75] One critic pointed out that despite's Kirk's claim of transparency in the process, public-interest stakeholders have been completely excluded.^[76] Another accused Kirk of sidestepping the issue of transparency, and pointed out that transparency is less about the degree of public input, and more about "the flow of information the other way—information about the workings of government being visible to the people it is supposed to represent."^[77]

In a subsequent interview with Reuters, Kirk defended the secrecy, saying he believes the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has conducted "the most engaged and transparent process as we possibly could," but that "some measure of discretion and confidentiality" are needed "to preserve negotiating strength and to encourage our partners to be willing to put issues on the table they may not otherwise."^[24] He dismissed the "tension" as natural and noted that when the Free Trade Area of the Americas drafts were released, negotiators were subsequently unable to reach a final agreement.^[24]

On 23 May 2012, United States Senator Ron Wyden introduced S. 3225, proposed legislation that would require the Office of the United States Trade Representative to disclose its TPP documents to all members of Congress.^[78] Wyden said the bill clarifies the intent of the 2002 legislation which was supposed to increase Congressional access to information about USTR activity, but which, according to Wyden, is being incorrectly interpreted by the USTR as justification to excessively limit such access.^[79] Wyden asserted:

“

The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations—like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association of America—are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement. [...] More than two months after receiving the proper security credentials, my staff is still barred from viewing the details of the proposals that USTR is advancing. We hear that the process by which TPP is being negotiated has been a model of transparency. I disagree with that statement.^[79]

”

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) have criticized the Obama administration's secrecy policies on the Trans-Pacific Pact.^[80]^[81]

Investor–state arbitration[edit]

The leaked draft treaty also contains Investor-state dispute settlement, which permits foreign investors who made an investment in the territory of a Party in accordance with its laws to submit a claim to arbitration under the arbitral rules of either International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes or United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. Tribunals are composed of three arbitrators. One is appointed by the investor, one by the state, and the third is usually chosen by agreement between the parties or their appointed arbitrators or selected by the appointing authority, depending on the procedural rules applicable to the dispute. The tribunal shall subject to the consent of the disputing parties and conduct hearings open to the public. The tribunal will make available to the public documents relating to the dispute such as the notice of intent, the notice of arbitration, pleadings, memorials, minutes or transcripts of the hearings of the tribunal, where available; orders, awards and decisions of the tribunal.

Substantive standards of protection include regulation of direct and indirect expropriation, minimum standard of treatment, national treatment, most favoured nation treatment. Non-discriminatory regulatory actions by a Party that are designed and applied to achieve legitimate public welfare objectives, such as the protection of public health, safety, and the environment do not constitute violation of the treaty.

Critics of the investment protection regime argue that traditional investment treaty standards are incompatible with environmental law, human rights protection, and public welfare regulation, meaning that TPP will be used to force states to lower standards e.g., environmental and workers protection, or be sued for damages.^[82] The Australian government's position against investor state dispute settlement has been argued to support the rule of law and national energy security.^[83^]

Polling[edit]

A 2011 opinion poll showed the American public has moved from “broad opposition” to “overwhelming opposition” toward NAFTA-style trade deals. An NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll from September 2010 revealed that “the impact of trade and outsourcing is one of the only issues on which Americans of different classes, occupations and political persuasions agree” with 86% believing that outsourcing jobs “a top cause of our economic woes,” and 69% indicating that “free trade agreements between the United States and other countries cost the U.S. jobs.” Only 17% of Americans in 2010 felt that “free trade agreements” benefit the U.S., compared to 28% in 2007.

A poll conducted in December 2012 showed 64 percent of New Zealanders thought trade agreements that allow corporations to sue governments, such as the TPP, should be rejected.^[84^]

Protests[edit]

On 5 March 2012, a group of TPP protesters disrupted an outside broadcast of 7News Melbourne's 6 pm bulletin in the city's Federation Square.[1]

On 7 July 2012, from 200 – 300 people marched in a "Pots and Pans" protest march against TPP and the secret negotiations to the hotel where the negotiations were being held.^[85] There was an alternative "People's Conference" held in the evening during the week.^[86]

In September 2012 Internet freedom organisation OpenMedia and other groups launched the OpenTheTPP campaign. The website includes a tool that collects citizens comments they then project inside the TPP meetings for officials to see.

Avaaz, an online petition website, has a petition against the TPP. As of 27 November 2012, the petition has gained over 720,000 signatures. [2]^{[importance?]}

The Occupy movement has also formed a protest rally against the TPP. [3]

In New Zealand a coalition of people concerned about the TPP have formed a group called It's Our Future aimed to raise public awareness about, and resistance against the TPP prior to the Auckland round of negotiations from 3 – 12 December 2012.^[87]

Starting at first in New Zealand and then connecting with organizations and people internationally, a group of individuals from the fields of Internet policy, art, information technology and law got together to discuss a TPP campaign with a copyright focus. What resulted was the idea of a fair deal, one that opens up trade opportunities for TPP member states but doesn’t force copyright and other IP-related changes that could damage society. Over 30 organizations and 15,000 individuals have signed up in support of this Our Fair Deal campaign.

The Citizens Trade Campaign (CTC) provided a list of questions that have yet to be answered:^[88]

Labor rights: Will the Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA include labor standards based on International Labor Organization conventions, and if included, how will they be enforced?

Investment Provisions: Will the Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA include so-called “investor-state” provisions that allow individual corporations to challenge environmental, consumer and other public interest policies as barriers to trade?

Public Procurement: Will the Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA respect nations’ and communities’ right to set purchasing preferences that keep taxpayer dollars re-circulating in local economies?

Access to Medicines: Will the Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA allow governments to produce and/or obtain affordable, generic medications for sick people?

Agriculture: Will the Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA allow countries to ensure that farmers and farm workers are fairly compensated, while also preventing the agricultural dumping that has forced so many family farmers off their land?

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^ Jump up to: ^a ^b Current Status of the TPP Negotiations
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^ Jump up to: ^a ^b ^c "Why Certain Trade Agreements Are Approved as Congressional-Executive Agreements Rather Than as Treaties" (pdf). Retrieved 2013-02-04.
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^ Jump up to: ^a ^b Sutherlin, Laurel (11 September 2012). "What You Need to Know About a Worldwide Corporate Power Grab of Enormous Proportions". AlterNet. Retrieved 2012-10-27.
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Public Citizen information resource on the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations

Text of Original Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement – Congressional Research Service report for Congress

United States – New Zealand Council – TPP Resources

Letters from Ambassador Kirk announcing President Obama's intention to enter into TPP negotiations

Office of the United States Trade Representative TPP Website

New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade TPP Website

Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry Overview of Trans-Pacific SEP

Obama's 'Pacific century' a challenge to China, Radio France Internationale in English

Trans-Pacific Partnership Leaders Statement September 9, 2012

Trans-Pacific Partnership- Impact on Internet Freedom

Flush the TPP! Stop the Global Corporate Coup!

Trash the TPP: Why it's time to revolt against the worst "trade agreement" in history. Occupy.com

No Jobs from Trade Pacts: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Could Be Much Worse than the Over-Hyped Korea Deal. Economic Policy Institute. July 18, 2013

Gains from Trade? The Net Effect of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement on U.S. Wages. Center for Economic and Policy Research. September 2013

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NAFTA-on-Steroids TPP threatens national sovereignty, public ownership

There's a reason negotiators are keeping talks secret over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, or NAFTA on Steroids. It's because no one would want it if they knew about it -- except Wall Street plunderers and CEOs of multinational corporations.

The naked capitalist writes that the TPP encourages,

...a market state where the interests of globe-spanning businesses come first. The TPP expands on NAFTA’s extreme investor-state regime that allows foreign companies to directly challenge a government’s derivatives regulation, capital controls, and other financial, health, and environmental policies.

UPDATE 10-9-13

HEADS UP - PEOPLE ATTACKING THE GRID SYSTEM ON PURPOSE:

On Tuesday, October 8, 2013 6:31 AM, John Tarapata wrote:

Weekend Attacks on Arkansas' Electric

Grid Leave 10,000 Without Power;

'YOU SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED US.'

More than 10,000 people in Arkansas were dumped into a blackout Sunday following an attack on that state’s electric

grid, the FBI said today, the third such attack in recent weeks. In August, a major transmission line in the region, around

Cabot, Ark., was deliberately cut.

The FBI said that two power poles had been intentionally cut in Lonoke County on Sunday, resulting in the outage.

“Though we remain confident that we will identify the person or persons responsible for these incidents,” the FBI said in

a press release, “we are enlisting the public’s help to be our eyes and ears. We take threats to our power grid very

seriously.”

The FBI said it would pay a $25,000 reward for information about the attacks.

And for good reason. The FBI suspects these attacks are linked with a third incident in September.

According to the FBI:

In the early morning hours of September 29, 2013, officialswith Entergy Arkansas reported a fire at its Keo Substation

located on Arkansas Highway 165 between Scott and England in Lonoke County. Fortunately, there were no injuries and

no reported power outages. Investigation has determined that the fire, which consumed the control house at the

substation, was intentionally set. The person or persons responsible for this incident inscribed a message on a metal

control panel outside the substation which reads, ‘YOU SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED US.’

In August, a person or group of people attached a cable to the framework of a 100-foot electric transmission tower and

placed the cable across the railroad track in an apparent attempt to use a moving train to pull down the tower.

While the electric power industry has expressed concerns about cybersecurity, the recent spate of attacks in Arkansas

suggests that the electric power grid is equally if not more vulnerable to physical acts of sabotage.

Europe has more experience with physical attacks on the electric grid than the United States, according to the Terrorism

Research & Analysis Consortium.

During the 1980′s, anti-nuclear political groups in Germany were believed to be responsible for acts of sabotage on

transmission lines from nuclear reactors.

UPDATE

This evening, the FBI released additional details regarding yesterday’s attack on the electric grid in central Arkansas.

According to the FBI’s press release:

The person or persons responsible for this incident took a tractor that had been parked inside a fenced area at the

intersection of Poston Road and John Shelton Road . . . and drove it through a locked cattle gate. We believe the person

or persons drove the tractor south on John Shelton Road, then turned west on either Billy Lane or Phillips Road, then

drove the tractor off road at County Road 466 and Phillips Road, following the cleared area of the power line to the

wooded area where the poles are located. Our investigation has determined that this tractor was utilized to pull down one

of the poles after the poles were cut.

The “tractor” was manufactured by Kershaw and is sold as the SkyTrim.

The picture above shows a SkyTrim similar to that found by the FBI, which Kershaw describes as “a rough terrain,

rubber-tired vehicle with telescoping boom and saw-type cutter head designed to trim trees.

”
The SkyTrim is used for vegetation management by utilities in rough terrain.

It appears that the culprit was able to commandeer the local utility’s (or owner of the transmission system) equipment to

pull down the utility poles.

The power lines targeted in the attacks, which can be found on Google Maps, appear to link a high-voltage transmission

line with a switching station or substation sited at 161 Billy Ln in Jacksonville, Arkansas.

The implication appears to be that the culprit not only knew where to find the equipment he needed to cause a power

outage, but he also know how to use that equipment well enough to pull down two utility poles.

MORE REASONS:

...a market state where the interests of globe-spanning businesses come first. The TPP expands on NAFTA’s extreme investor-state regime that allows foreign companies to directly challenge a government’s derivatives regulation, capital controls, and other financial, health, and environmental policies.

This government has recently left a trail of catastrophic doomsday scenarios a mile wide, the most severe of which speaks to an EMP attack. Many of whom are aware of the coming drill, fear an EMP attack which will permanently disable the grid as TV viewers have seen in the popular TV show, Revolution. Personally, I do not expect to see an all-encompassing EMP attack because so many of the police state surveillance grid assets would be impacted (e.g. surveillance cameras, NSA spy grid capabilities, etc.) and so many resources have been used in its development. Yet, given the unlikely event of an EMP attack, it seems that nearly everyone from former DHS director, Janet Napolitano to former CIA director, James Woolsey have discussed the possibility of a grid takedown through an EMP attack. Further, the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Commission in their, NERC PowerPoint presentation, stated that one of the possible outcomes of an attack will be a “prolonged blackout…”

Although I do not believe that an EMP attack is in our immediate future, it is likely that a false flag terror attack on our power grid, set to coincide with the November North American blackout drill, will take place.

The working scenario that has emerged is that World War III is on the horizon. Syria was to be the flash point. However, with American and international sentiment running so high against American involvement in the Syrian conflict, Obama needs a Plan B in order to get America into war, because it does not appear that Congress is going to give him the authorization that he needs to force our way in Syria culminating in a military stand-off between the Russians and the Chinese and the United States. Subsequently, if Obama fails to obtain Congressional support to attack Syria, he could very well turn his attention to the takedown of the power grid and he could still achieve his goals in under two months.

If and when the power grid is compromised, this would plunge North America into an abyss of darkness. Some people will undoubtedly anticipate “three days of darkness” which will lead to a roll-out of draconian martial law. Certainly, some of the recent government preparations speak to this possibility with FEMA stockpiling massive amounts of food and the acquisition of 2.6 billion rounds of ammunition by DHS. And with the roll-out of martial law, the will of the people and of Congress would no longer matter and Obama would be free to prosecute any conflict he would deem necessary. Personally, this would be an attractive option for Obama because he might very well be setting himself up to be King for life.

The Constitutional Kill Switch

I would then expect that the takedown of the grid, no matter how temporary, could lead to the imposition of total Federal tyranny and the implementation of the Constitutional kill switch, otherwise known as, Executive Order 13603, in which the government would control every resource in the country including the involuntary conscription of any person for any purpose which would be overseen by the Secretary of Labor. All food and water would be subject to Federal control, whether this would be your family garden, your food stockpiles…anything… anybody is subject to confiscation by FEMA and DHS under Executive Order 13603 which is martial law on steroids.This would give those in charge total control over the vast resources of this country.

First, there are some very serious implications which could result from a grid shutdown, but the cost-benefit analysis favoring the elite going through with this plot.

Just as the CIA backed al-Qaeda needed a game-changing even to bring in the US military to break the Syrian stalemate by staging a false flag chemical weapons attack, the globalists need a game-changing event in America. Taking down the grid is a move in that direction, and what better way to accomplish this goal than an embedded event within a terrorist drill.

Bankster Benefits to a Grid Shutdown

There are some tangible benefits to the banksters perpetrating a grid shutdown. In the aftermath of a grid shut down, a shut down that might only last a few days, the Internet would go down and the banksters could restore the Internet at some point with Chinese types of censorship controls which would effectively silence the truth movement. McCain at one time wanted offensive bloggers fined $300,000. Senator Jay Rockefeller stated that he wished the Internet had never been invented. Both men may soon get their way.

A power grid shut down would also allow for the full implementation of a North Korea type of police state apparatus under the guise of keeping order. The NSA would provide the intelligence and DHS would provide enforcement. And I think the beleaguered citizens of the United States would soon discover why FEMA signed the bilateral agreement which allows Russian troops on our soil. Certainly, if the Russians are used to supplement martial law, we could conclude that all the drama over Syria may be very well-orchestrated theater and that Russian and the United States are on the same side and are serving the same “Gnomes of Zurich” banksters. Yes, war could still happen between the two super powers, but it would be a contrived war, not a spontaneous event.

An additional benefit to conducting this drill is that it will allow the banksters to test their ability to shut down power to selected communities and/or regions. This would be a useful tool in combating the insurrection that surely will follow the tyranny of what is coming.

In a grid shutdown, the above developments are likely given the cast of players who are making the grand decisions impacting this country. However, a perpetual state of martial law, extreme Internet control and insurrection suppression through denial of power do not represent the final goals in this latest plot against our citizens.

Conclusion

It is completely understandable as to why some people are viewing this terror drill with extreme suspicion. Sometimes, when journalists cover events, they get a feeling for what lies ahead without fully knowing all the facts. I, too, like so many of my colleagues have that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach which is screaming at me that this terror drill will produce some very ominous spin-off complications. And as bad as the November 13th terror drill may be, I strongly fear that this event will have a second possibility which contains some very dire consequences in which the resulting effects will be much more devastating than just suffering through a prolonged blackout.

There is a strong possibility that there could be a false flag attack embedded within the false flag attack coming upon our grid and I will address that possibility in the next article in this series.

Dave is an award winning psychology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and articles in several publications such as Freedoms Phoenix, News With Views and The Arizona Republic.

The Common Sense Show features a wide variety of important topics that range from the loss of constitutional liberties, to the subsequent implementation of a police state under world governance, to exploring the limits of human potential. The primary purpose of The Common Sense Show is to provide Americans with the tools necessary to reclaim both our individual and national sovereignty.

Based on an August 16th New York Times article, it appears that this November 13th/14th drill will not involve a shut down of the electrical grid.

The North American Utility Reliability Corporation (mentioned in the above article) is in charge of planning this upcoming November drill which is called Grid Ex-II. I wrote to Bill Lawrence who is the man in charge saying:
“Dear Mr. Lawrence, … I have a question about the upcoming November 13th/14th test scheduled to take place in just two months. First, I was wondering whether NERC the main agency overseeing this drill? Also, there are postings on the internet indicating that on these days the U.S. will be participating with Canada and Mexico in an excercise to examine the system response to a hypothetical EMP event or cyber attack and some postings claim that the entire electrical grid will be shut down during these two days. Is there any truth to this? I need to have some informed input on this since I find this hard to believe.”

He responded:
“Dr. LaViolette, NERC is running a simulated exercise to practice crisis response and information sharing. No real power outages will occur due to this exercise. The scenario does not involve EMP.”

Checking out the NERC website, one finds that this is an expanded version of a Grid drill that they had previously conducted in November 2011. Apparently, there is a lot of misinformation that was posted about this on the internet that was not previously checked out. So disregard concerns voiced in my original posting that this exercise will involve a planned blackout and speculations that its dates may have been chosen to prepare for a real event.

I have used strikethroughs to indicate material to disregard in my previously revised posting below. Although there are many who do not trust public statements from government agencies and feel we should nevertheless prepare ourselves for unexpected events (see comments at the end of this posting).

~~Compounding my concerns expressed in the previous posting about the~~ ~~FEMA emergency preparedness for Region 3, are recent internet news stories reporting that there will be a two-day electric grid shut down in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico on November 13th and 14th, 2013.~~

Here are a few links to postings about this event:
http://www.survivetheapocalypse.net/2013/08/29/power-grid-down-november-2013/

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/09/when-the-lights-go-out-on-november-13-2013-2756838.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

This one predicts that it may coincide with a false flag operation: http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/09/07/when-the-lights-go-out-on-november-13-2013/

~~But there is still uncertainty as to whether there will be an actual shut down of the electric grid or just a test or simulation of a grid EMP attack.~~ It is really difficult to tell from these news postings because both ideas are being circulated. This confusion may be due to people lacking a clear official statement of what is planned for these days. I have been unable to check this out with any U.S. electric utilities since I am currently in Europe. But one viewer strongly feels that this is just a test simulation and not an actual power black out (see reader comments below).

As I have warned in previous publications and outreach projects, a galactic superwave would deliver a strong EMP pulse at the time of its arrival, possibly threatening the electric grid, GPS satellites, and cellular telephone systems. One way to protect the electric grid would be to shut it down during the time of superwave arrival. So, if there will be an actual grid shut down on this date, this provokes the question as to whether this date was chosen arbitrarily, or was it selected to coincide with a predicted superwave arrival date or arrival of some other celestial hazard such as a Carrington event solar flare knowledge of which is being kept secret from the public? If it is just a simulation with no power black out being planned, then this becomes a non issue.

Having advanced knowledge the certain occurrence of a major solar flare on a particular date seems a bit farfetched. Besides, even though we are currently at solar maximum, a major solar outburst seems less likely given that the current maximum is far smaller in magnitude than previous cycles and that solar activity is currently on a long-term decline.

Knowing the precise date of a superwave arrival also seems a bit difficult to accept since currently no elevated activity has been seen at the Galactic center, even with the present threatening approach of the G2 cloud. So knowing that something this far in advance would entail that authorities (presumably associated with highly classified black projects) had received a message or communication about the superwave’s deep space location with this information being conveyed at a speed faster than the speed of light since the superwave itself would approach us at very close to the speed of light. How would this be possible? Through superluminal spacetravel? Prior communications with informed ETs?

~~Interestingly, in his~~ ~~October 2008 Project Camelot interview~~, a person using the pseudonym “Jake Simpson” claimed exactly this. He said that a person with need to know clearance had disclosed to him that a wave-like cataclysmic phenomenon (likely a galactic cosmic ray volley) would be impacting our planet beginning somewhere between 2017 and 2020, without having been given the exact date. He said that military leaders had known for many decades that a catastrophe of huge magnitude would occur early in the 21st century and had learned this through ET contact. He also said that people responsible for the unacknowledged U.S. black projects had received confirmation by sending out a highly advanced faster-than-light spacecraft to “take a look” and that they had returned to report back with the information. Although this story may be difficult for the average person to believe, it is true that we have developed technologies capable of faster-than-light space travel as described in my book ~~Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion~~.

~~Also of interest is an~~ ~~April 2009 Project Camelot~~ posting of correspondence they had with the wife of a senior electrical engineer. Her husband had been privately briefed about a cyclic cosmic EMP event that was to definitely to occur in 3 to 4 years that would render the electrical grid and every transformer connected to it useless if preventative measures were not taken. Her time frame places this at the latest around 2013. She said that knowledge of the event was being kept secret from the public and that it would affect the whole planet, that it had something to do with Earth’s encounter with “electromagnetic clouds in space”. She said that they were desperately trying to find a solution to the problem and if they didn’t, the entire global electrical system would go down. Electromagnetic clouds in space (presumably meant to approach from outside the solar system) resembles more a superwave event than a solar flare or coronal mass ejection event. Could this upcoming grid EMP exercise be connected with the event she is referring to? If an actual grid shut down is planned, could this be an intentional preventative measure to limit potential EMP damage to the electrical grid?

Is this upcoming electric grid exercise merely a simulation? Or will it indeed involve a two-day shut down of all electric utility supplies everywhere in North America? If it is the latter, it strikes me that the loss of income from closed businesses during this period would be staggering. November 13th and 14th fall on a Wednesday and Thursday, hence on working days two weeks before Thanksgiving. Why wasn’t it scheduled for a weekend to have less of an economic impact? It seems unlikely that a grid shutdown would have received Presidential approval unless there were some undisclosed pressing reason for conducting it, particularly over such a long length of time and on these particular working days. Could this be a measure to save the grid from a real cosmic ray EMP event? Hopefully it is instead just a personnel and utility system test and we will not need to plan for a power outage.

To learn more about the electric grid vulnerabilities from severe space events, you may be interested to read this report from a National Research Council workshop held in May 2008: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12507. Also here is advice on disaster preparation which former NASA director Charles Bolden made to his NASA employees in 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECzjhSDD_kM.

There is evidence that our planet may have been impacted by as many as 13 minor superwave events in the past 5300 years. As many of 8 of these appear to be registered in the geologic record, as described in this Starburst Foundation news posting:
http://starburstfound.org/independent-confirmation-arrival-minor-superwave-event-774-ad/ This evidence indicates that we are currently overdue for another event.

You can find information about superwaves and superwave preparedness by going to the following pages on this site:
• http://etheric.com/galactic-superwaves/
• http://starburstfound.org/steps-that-should-be-taken-for-superwave-preparedness/

Hopefully we will have more information in the next week as to whether the November 13th/14th event will be just a procedure simulation or an actual grid shut down. Anyone who has obtained official information about this from their local electric utility or Homeland Security office, please comment.

Paul A. LaViolette
September 11, 2013
updated September 15, 2013

NASA Alert America Blackout & Grid Shutdown 2013 - YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCnfvd1KhHw

9 min - Sep 19, 2013 - Uploaded by ThejmanPrepper

NASA Alert America Blackout & Grid Shutdown 2013 .... Power-Grid-Down Drill " GridEx II ...

Search for videos of GRID SHUTDOWN NOVEMBER 13TH 2013

★★ Russia & U.S.★ November 13-14 Grid Test To Be Taken Down★★★★ Are YOU Ready? Be VERY Ready!

The New York Times is currently reporting that …”thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, F.B.I. anti-terrorism experts and officials from government agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico are preparing for an emergency drill in November that will simulate physical attack and cyber attacks that could take down large sections of the power grid.”

To date, 150 businesses have volunteered to participate in the drill. This is a scheduled two day drill commencing on November 13th. One goal of the drill, called GridEx II, is to explore how governments would react as the loss of the grid crippled the supply chain for everyday necessities.

How can this possibly be anything but a blatant effort to erode US sovereignty and move the nation further down the road toward global government?

I saw this article from Dave Hodges, he was thinking just like me, were you thinking this also? That since the Russians have been training with our military and NATO is running the show, seems most of the time, this is a summation of important topics.

Dave Hudges wrote amazingly when he put it together as follows (linked below):

Just as the CIA backed al-Qaeda needed a game changer to bring in the US military to break the Syrian stalemate by staging a false flag chemical weapons attack, the globalists need a game changing event in America. Taking down the grid is a move in that direction, and what better way to accomplish this goal as an embedded event within a terrorist drill.

Things are about to get dark, very dark in just a few short weeks. In just over two months, on November 13-14, 2013, the lights are about to go out. Will the lights come back on? It depends on who you ask.

Given the past behavior of those in power, it would behoove all of us to prepare for the fact that we could be living for an extended time with no electricity.

There are some tangible benefits to the banksters perpetrating a grid shutdown. In the aftermath of a grid shut down, a shut down that might only last a few days, the internet would go down and the banksters could restore the internet at some point with Chinese types of censorship controls which would effectively silence the truth movement.

A power grid shut down would also allow for the full implementation of a North Korea type of police state apparatus under the guise of keeping order. The NSA would provide the intelligence and DHS would provide enforcement.

I think the beleaguered citizens of the United States would soon discover why FEMA signed the bilateral agreement which allows Russian troops on our soil.

If the Russians are used supplement martial law, we could conclude that all the drama over Syria may be very well-orchestrated theater and that Russian and the United States are on the same side and are serving the same “Gnomes of Zurich” banksters.

Yes, war could still happen between the two super powers, but it would be a contrived war, not a spontaneous event. Like a fixed boxing match, car race, baseball game, the game may be rigged!

Russian troops are on American soil to train with FEMA. Rumors about foreign soldiers being spotted on United States military bases began circulating online earlier this week, the claims quickly went viral. A Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defense release stated the troops are here as part of an exchange of experts project.

The number of Russian troops in America is unknown, but an unnamed source allegedly from the Department of Defense (DOD) maintains 50,000 soldiers from the former Cold War foe have arrived. The same source also claimed that a total of 100,000 foreign troops are currently training in the United States. The exchange of experts is reportedly being done in conjunction with FEMA emergency and disaster preparedness training.

US Defense Department Press Officer Wendy L. Snyder stated the Russian military members are participating in joint anti-terrorism drills. Snyder also said, “This is part of a formal bilateral exchange program between the US and Russia that seeks to develop transparency and promote defense reform.”

The Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defense release stated that FEMA and the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry will be conducting joint rescue operations for major disasters. Representatives from both nations met in Washington, D.C. last week to finalize the logistics of the endeavor.

The presence of foreign soldiers in the United States has some very concerned that the troops could be deployed to police the streets or offer instructions to American citizens during an emergency scenario or terrorism attack. The possibility that Russian troops could be deployed as a part of a security force at events deemed “National Special Security Events” by the Department of Homeland Security are often noted among the fears voiced by opponents of foreign soldier training in America.

In 2012 Russian airborne troops arrived in Colorado at Fort Carson. The influx of foreign soldiers represented the first time armed forces members from another country trained on American soil. US Army Reserve Captain William Geddes has deemed the influx of Russian troops a clear violation of the intent of the Posse Comitatus Act. The federal statute makes it illegal to employ any members of the United States Army for the purpose of executing laws, unless such a use of force was authorized expressly by either Congress or the Constitution.

http://www.inquisitr.com/828674/russian-troops-on-american-soil-confirmed/

How do you feel about Russian troops on American soil?

The Past Is the Best Predictor of the Future

With the possibility that the upcoming terror drill will turn into a false flag event, it would be in everyone’s best interest to examine this event more closely and to prepare accordingly.

more : http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/09/07/when-the-lights-go-out-on-november-13-2013/

Although World War III is here, I have hope for humanity. It has never been greater.

Syria, Iran, Russia, China along with many other countries and people’s of the planet do not want war.

So far, only the US and French governments want to launch strikes into Syrian territory.

It will be disastrous because Syria will respond, so will Iran, Russia and China.

It will not end well, but one thing is for sure, those who are NOT the aggressors (US and France) are on the right side of history, one that seeks peace and prosperity for the world, not death and destruction.

They will resist war as long as possible because we all know how war usually ends. In war nobody wins, one life that is lost on either side is still a loss.

The fight for humanity will continue long after war.

Empires have always failed in the past and so will the US and France because humanity will prevail.

We as humans always resist tyranny in one form or another.

The powers that seek to control us will continue but eventually they will fade away because we as conscious human beings will continue to seek truth, peace, love and prosperity.

Stand with the Syrian people and hope for a peaceful way out!

The US Empire has already failed with its lawless policies and has been steadily declining politically, financially, militarily and morally.

An awakening among the masses has occurred that resulted in a global resistance and it is here to stay.

We will Prevail. War is tragic.

The point here is that the Syrian government and the people will resist the attack.

The Syrian people are already resisting US attempts to attack facilities by forming “human Shields” in protest.

They will not submit to Washington’s demands.

Imperial powers always have faced resistance from the people and its’ governments who refused to become exploited and controlled.

Syria is not alone

In the past and present, resistance against tyranny has always been part of the human spirit.

Whether you like him or not, President al Assad and the Syrian people have the right as sovereign nation not to be ruled under the thumb of Washington, Paris, London and Tel Aviv.

In war, there are no winners.

There is a resistance among the Syrian government and its’ people in the face of Imperialist aggression.

A Historical Perspective on People Resisting Imperial Powers

http://silentcrownews.com/wordpress/?p=2357

When the lights go out-Power Grid Down Drill To Be Conducted By US Government

November 13-14 2013

In the unlikely event of an EMP attack, it seems that nearly everyone from former DHS director, Janet Napolitano to former CIA director, James Woolsey have discussed the possibility of a grid take down through an EMP attack.

Further, the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Commission in their,NERC PowerPoint presentation, stated that one of the possible outcomes of an attack will be a “prolonged blackout…”

Power grid vulnerabilities are finally garnering some attention by government officials.

An electrical grid joint drill simulation is being planned in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Thousands of utility workers, FBI agents, anti-terrorism experts, governmental agencies, and more than 150 private businesses are involved in the November power grid drill.

The downed power grid simulation will reportedly focus on both physical and cyber attacks. The antiquated electrical system in the United States has been one of the most neglected pieces of integral infrastructure.

The EMP Commission, created by Congress, released a report in 2008 calling for increased planning and testing, and a stockpiling of needed repair items.

The SHIELD Act, which is stalled in Congress, is the first serious piece of legislation in many years to attempt to address the vulnerabilities of the power grid in. As previously reported by Off The Grid News, a recent American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) report gave the power grid a “D+” when grading various pieces of infrastructure and public services in the United States.

The disaster drill is being described as a crisis practice unlike anything the real power grid has ever experienced. The GridEX II drill Nov. 13-14 will focus primarily on how governments will react if the electrical grid fails and, for instance, the food supply chain collapses.

American utility companies are responsible for running approximately 5,800 power plants and about 450,000 high-voltage transmission lines, controlled by various devices which have been put into place over the past decades. Some of the utility companies which oversee the power grid reportedly use “antique computer protocols” which are “probably” safe from cyber hackers,” The New York Times reported.

The Times said experts call the power grid the nation’s “glass jaw.” Even the military gets 99 percent of its power the same way everyday citizens get it – from commercially run companies.

Harness the power of the sun when the power goes out…

“If an adversary lands a knockout blow, [experts] fear, it could black out vast areas of the continent for weeks; interrupt supplies of water, gasoline, diesel fuel and fresh food; shut down communications; and create disruptions of a scale that was only hinted at by Hurricane Sandy and the attacks of Sept. 11,” The Times said.

Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman Curt Hebert stated that if the nation fails at electricity, “we’re going to fail miserably” at everything else.

Hebert also noted that during prior power grid drills, the scenario assumed the system would be up and running again relatively quickly after an attack. This drill will assume it’s out much longer.

If the power grid fails, a lack of electricity and food delivery are only the first wave of troubles facing the American people. Police could face major problems with civil unrest. Of course, there also would not be any electric heating or cooling, which easily could lead to many deaths depending on the season.

A 2012 report by the National Academy of Science said terrorists could cripple the nation by damaging or destroying hard-to-replace components, some of which aren’t even made in the United States.

“Of particular concern are giant custom-built transformers that increase the voltage of electricity to levels suited for bulk transmission and then reduce voltage for distribution to customers,” The Times said in a summary of the report. “… Replacing them can take many months.”

Said Clark W. Gellings, a researcher at the Electric Power Research Institute, “I don’t think we pay quite enough attention to the technology fixes that would allow us to make the power system more resilient.”

SOURCE:http://www.offthegridnews.com