SPP bolsters US control. It enhances corporate power, quashes civil liberties, erases public welfare, and creates an open field for plunder free from regulatory restraints. It's being plotted behind closed doors. A series of summits and secret meetings continue with the latest one in New Orleans from April 22 to 24.
Three presidents attended and were met by vocal street protests. They convened a "People's Summit" and also held workshops to:
-- inform people how destructive SPP is;
-- strengthen networking and organizational ties against it;
-- maintain online information about their activities;
-- promote their efforts and build added support; and
-- affirm their determination to continue resisting a hugely repressive corporate-sponsored agenda. Opponents call it Nafta on steroids.
Business-friendly opposition also exists. Prominent is a "Coalition to Block the North American Union." The Conservative Caucus backs it. It has a "NAU War Room." It's the "headquarters of THE national campaign to expose and halt America's absorption into a 'North American Union (NAU)' with Canada and Mexico." It opposes building "a massive, continental 'NAFTA Superhighway.' "
It has congressional allies, and on January 2007 Rep. Virgil Goode and six co-sponsors introduced House Concurrent Resolution 40. It expresses "the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in (building a NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada."
The April summit reaffirmed SPP's intentions - to create a borderless North America, dissolve national sovereignty, put corporate giants in control, and assure big US ones get most of it. Militarism is part of it. It's the reason for fortress-North America under US command. The US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) was established in October 2002 to do it. It has air, land and sea responsibility for the continent regardless of Posse Comitatus limitations that no longer apply or sovereign borders easily erased.
Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also have a large role. So does the FBI, CIA, all US spy agencies, militarized state and local police, National Guard forces, and paramilitary mercenaries like Blackwater USA. They're headed anywhere on the continent with license to operate as freely here as in Iraq and New Orleans post-Katrina. They'll be able to turn hemispheric streets into versions of Baghdad and make them unfit to live on if things come to that.
SPP maintains a web site. It's "key accomplishments" since August 2007 are updated on it as of April 22, 2008. Its details can be accessed from the following link: click here It lists principles agreed to; bilateral deals struck; negotiations concluded; study assessments released; agreements on the "Free Flow of Information;" law enforcement activities; efforts related to intellectual property, border and long-haul trucking enforcement; import licensing procedures; food and product safety issues; energy (with special focus on oil); water as well; infrastructure development; emergency management; and much more. It's all laid out in deceptively understated tones to hide its continental aim - enhanced corporate exploitation with as little public knowledge as possible.
Militarization will assure it, and consider one development up North. On February 14, 2008, the US and Canada agreed to allow American troops inside Canada. Canadians were told nothing or that the agreement was reached in 2002. Neither was it discussed in Congress or the Canadian House of Commons. It's for "bilateral integration" of military command structures in areas of immigration, law enforcement, intelligence, or whatever else the Pentagon or Washington wishes. Overall, it's part of the "war on terror" and militarizing the continent to make it "safer" for business and be prepared for any civilian opposition.
Congress may soon pass SPP, but with no knowledge of its worst provisions kept secret. It's to assure enough congressional support makes it law. Nonetheless, federal, state and local opposition is building. It ranges from private activism to vocal lawmakers. In 2008, a dozen or more states passed resolutions against SPP. Around 20 others did it in 2007. Congress began debating it last year with opposition raised on various grounds - open borders, unchecked immigration, a NAFTA Superhighway System, and the idea of giving unregulated Mexican trucks free access to US roads and cities.
There's also talk of replacing three national currencies with an "Amero." Unfortunately, little is heard about trashing the Constitution or giving corporate bosses free reign. There's even less talk about a militarized continent against dissent. SPP is a "new world order." Companies are plotting to get it. People better hope they don't. Disruptive opposition might derail them. It's building but needs more resonance to matter. Time is short and slipping away. These schemers mean business. They want our future. We can't afford to lose it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
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