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Werewolf Edition #36 – Trans Pacific Partnership Special

Wednesday, 28 November 2012, 11:21 am
Article: Werewolf

Werewolf Edition #36 – Trans Pacific Partnership Special

From Werewolf Editor Gordon Campbell

http://werewolf.co.nz/

Enter the "Wolf"

Hi and welcome to the 36th edition of Werewolf, this month dominated by the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiation round in Auckland, early December. The TPP is a secretive trade deal via which US business lobbies aim to unify the Asia Pacific region in service to their commercial interests – but to date, all the TPP has managed to unify (and magnify) is opposition to its aims and processes from an unlikely mix of left wing fair traders and multilateral free traders, nationalists and pan-nationalists, environmentalists, academics, trade unionists, business analysts, many members of the US Congress and farmers from as far afield as Japan, Canada and the United States.

As we explain > this month's cover story everyone from Pharmac to The Warehouse to our bio-security safety net are in the TPP firing line, and New Zealand would lose immediately far, far more than it stands to gain, eventually from a TPP deal. In her story, Alison McCulloch reports on the TPP’s special implications for agriculture, and water quality. In another TPP story, we demonstrate how benign sounding TPP terms like “ transparency” would impact on Pharmac, and on this country’s medicines bill. In our exclusive interview with Jagdish Bhagwati, the world’s foremost trade economist explains his concerns about the damage the TPP may do to New Zealand, and to multilateral free trade.

But hey, its not all TPP, folks. In this extensively researched story, Dunedin writer Greg Adamson examines the hypocrisy of state’s role in persecuting of Kim Dotcom while state agencies and major corporates pour in money to advertise on his and other allegedly ‘pirate” sites. From the edge of the horrifically polluted Aral Sea, globe-trotting regular contributor Brannavan Gnanalingam reports on the blighted landscape and on the region’s peculiar fate as the resting ground for a century of Russian lost art, from socialist realism to underground experimentalism. Entombed art beside a dying sea.

Are hipsters the pea or the princess? Or do they inhabit a Venn diagram where they’re both the advance scouts of change and the boundary riders of the status quo at the same time? Anne Russell reports on how hipsters and their infernal identity shopping and penchant for cultural appropriation suit capitalism right down to the ground. In his film column this month Philip Matthews picks 2012’s best, worst and over-rated films. While in our music column The Complicatist there’s a downbeat thread running from hipster depressive art rapper Serengeti, early 60s rocker Del Shannon (so downbeat he’s dead) and singing fashion plate Lana Del Rey. Finally, in his satirical column Lyndon Hood asks whether you too, are finding it impossible these days to suspend disbelief at NZ’s patently scripted politics. Better acting, better writing, more believable plotlines, please.

Thanks to Lyndon for helping me post this online. And thanks to everyone who’s helped out, written for, donated to and/or just plain old read something on Werewolf this year. Thanks a whole lot. You all make it seem like fun, at close of day. We’re taking a break, but the ‘Wolf will back in February. If you want to be involved and care to talk over story ideas, contact me at gordon@scoop.co.nz

Gordon Campbell
Editor, Werewolf.

gordon@werewolf.co.nz

The contents of this edition are:

************
FEATURES:
***********

Into The Cave of Dreams – Trans Pacific Partnership
Is the Trans Pacific Partnership a free trade mirage?
by Gordon Campbell

Selling the Farm – Trans Pacific Partnership
Just how much could a TPP deal to get our dairy into the United States really cost us?
by Alison McCulloch

The Neutering Of Pharmac – Trans Pacific Partnership
How the TPP trade deal means trouble for our drugs buying agency.
by Gordon Campbell

Head First Into The Spaghetti Bowl – Trans Pacific Partnership
An exclusive interview with the world’s leading trade scholar, Jagdish Bhagwati.
by Gordon Campbell

MegaContradictions
Copyright infringement is allegedly theft – so how come state agencies and corporates advertise on pirate sites?
by Greg Adamson

Hipster Irony and Capitalism
Reporting from the polyhipsternomics war zone
by Anne Russell

Go To China
The best (and worst) films of 2012
by Philip Matthews

Art On Desolation Row
A great art museum endures, amidst social and environmental disaster by the Aral Sea
by Brannavan Gnanalingam

************
COLUMNS:
***********

From The Hood : This Movie Sucks
Shouldn’t reality have a better script?
by Lyndon Hood

The Complicatist : Serengeti, Del Shannon, Lana Del Rey
Learning survival tactics from Brian Dennehy
by Gordon Campbell

* * * * * WEREWOLF ISSUE 35, October 11, 2012 * * * * *

The Octoberr 2012 Edition of Werewolf
by Werewolf

*********

THE IMPORTANT BIT - WHY WEREWOLF?
from Scoop General Manager Alastair Thompson

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