Dave Felice at Polis Rally, Aug.28, 2014

Dave Felice in red shirt, front row

Presented by Dave Felice at the rally at the Boulder office of Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO2) on August 28.


We are supposed to have representative democracy. But when the people we elect do not represent us, we have an obligation to ask why.
When secret agreements are meant to defeat the democratic process, we must ask why.
We don't know what secret agreement Jared Polis and (Governor) John Hickenlooper reached "over dinner" to prevent us from voting on fracking.
Likewise, we don't know all of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership. Fast Track is the way President Barack Obama and some members of Congress want to circumvent the democratic process and prevent full and open debate.

We also have to ask what's in it for us. How does TPP benefit ordinary working people?
Will we have more and better jobs? NO
Will we have better income? NO
Will we protect American jobs and products? NO
Will we continue to have free and open Internet? NO
Will we have lower-priced medicines? NO
Will we be able to prevent importation of unsafe food from totalitarian nations? NO
Will Colorado's agriculture be protected? NO
Will we be able to protect our environment? NO
Will American business be safe from investor state lawsuits in international courts? NO

We have seen that so-called "free trade" agreements do not work. American workers and consumers suffer these failures. We need vision in Congress and the administration for a new approach!

Senator Elizabeth Warren says if real people, whose jobs are at stake and small businesses who don't want to compete with overseas companies that dump their waste in rivers and hire workers for a dollar a day, knew what's in the TPP, they would be opposed. "If the people of this country are opposed to a particular trade agreement, then maybe that agreement should not happen."

Senator Warren is right. Real people are pushed out of TPP talks.
Jared Polis says he has read most of the TPP at least three times. He ought to know this treaty is a bad deal for the American people!
It is time for Jared Polis to get off the fence and stand up strongly for good-paying jobs, safe food, a healthy environment, and a free Internet for Colorado's working families.

A vote for Fast Track is a betrayal of representative democracy. A vote for Fast Track and the TPP is a vote for Wall Street profits and trans-national corporations that send jobs overseas and hurt working people in Boulder and beyond!