<nettime> Flashmob choir interrupts TTIP congress - Boing Boing

["Michael Gurstein" <gurstein@gmail.com>]

   http://boingboing.net/2015/07/03/flashmob-choir-interrupts-ttip.html

   > The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a secret EU/US
   trade agreement that "puts the right to profit above all other rights,"
   in the words of one MEP.
   >
   > Like its cousin, the Trans Pacific Partnership, TTIP is being
   negotiated by trade officials and industry reps, without any oversight
   from elected legislators and without any participation by citizens'
   groups, environmental groups, or labor groups. And like TPP, it is
   expected to arrive with Investor State Dispute Settlement provisions
   that lets offshore corporations sue your government to overturn the
   democratically enacted environmental, labor and safety laws that
   undermine their profitability.
   >
   > At a pro-TTIP congress where the Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister was
   promoting the treaty, a flashmob of attendees stood up singly and then
   in bunches, singing "Do You Hear the People Sing?" a rousing
   revolutionary song from Les Miserables, as the moderator sputtered with
   comic ineffectualness into the microphone. It's a hell of a video.
   >
   > At this point, you may be asking yourself, well, so what? It's not
   like interrupting this one meeting will stop TTIP from grinding on.
   >
   > You're right. This won't stop it.
   >
   > The reason TTIP and TPP are steamrolling on is that, like all the
   most dangerous evils in the world, they are profoundly boring. It is
   virtually impossible to get anyone out there interested in them, and so
   there's virtually no discussion of them, even though they will affect
   every bit of your life and your kids' lives, in ways large and small,
   ranging from whether the water in your tap comes out literally on fire
   to whether you're entitled to compensation when your employer's
   negligence maims you for life.
   >
   > Dullness is a huge fitness factor for bad stuff. And what these
   brave, singing people have done is make TTIP slightly less dull. They
   have created a video that you can show to your friends, which is
   intrinsically interesting, if only because it's not every day you see
   high-level business meetings get disrupted by flashmobs with showtunes.
   And once you've got your friends watching this video, you can tell them
   about TTIP.
   >
   > These folks have not ended TTIP. That's up to us. They've given us
   one of the tools to do it.
   >
   > Stop TTIP



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