Now that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement has been made public some are saying it’s worse than they thought it would be. According to Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch: “From leaks, we knew quite a bit about the agreement, but in chapter after chapter the final text is worse than we expected with the demands of the 500 official U.S. trade advisers representing corporate interests satisfied to the detriment of the public interest.”

On issues ranging from climate change to food safety, from open Internet to access to medicines, the TPP “is a disaster,” declared Nick Dearden of Global Justice Now. “Now that we’ve seen the full text, it turns out the job-killing TPP is worse than anything we could’ve imagined,” added Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America. “This agreement would push down wages, flood our nation with unsafe imported food, raise the price of life-saving medicine, all the while trading with countries where gays and single mothers can be stoned to death.” See http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/05/worse-we-thought-tpp-total-corporate-power-grab-nightmare.

All this from the president who promised us “change we can believe in.” Yet, once again, Big Money and corporate America are calling the shots in Washington to the great detriment of most people. But, we don’t have to stand for it. Contrary to Obama’s corporate giveaway scheme, the TPP agreement can be the motivational vehicle for change we can really believe in. The trade agreement provides a compelling organizing opportunity for the American people to rise up and break Big Money’s grip on our government.

As I suggest in my new book, Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America,we need to build a Democracy Movement by organizing thousands of DOCs (democracy organizing committees) in towns and cities across the country. Opposition to the TPP can be the force that brings us together, liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, Independent and Liberatarian, to form local DOCs. We can work together to take control of our country away from Big Money and put it in the hands of the people where it belongs. For more information about building a Democracy Movement and my new book, go to http://www.breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.