ecently, a LiveJournal friend of mine, Stacerific, asked me what I thought of this whole North American Union thing. I responded, rather intelligently, I thought, with: “What North American Union?”
     Stacerific said, “Oh yeah, meeting on August 20th to ratify the idea. Been talking about it since ‘05.”
     ”No way.” I said. Surely not? Surely someone on the news would have mentioned such a thing? I mean, was there a nation-wide announcement, and I just slept in that day? It could happen. I consider myself fairly well informed, but according to one of the articles I read yesterday, only about 20% of the American population know that a “North American Union” is even being considered.

The SPP [Security and Prosperity Partnership] controversy has its origins in Canada, where business groups worried they would be locked out of the U.S. market by post-9/11 border security measures. At the so-called “Three Amigos” summit in Waco, Texas, in 2005, President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin launched the SPP “to increase security and enhance prosperity among the three countries through greater cooperation.” Their first move was to appoint 13 working groups, 10 dealing with commerce and three dealing with security. Think of it as NAFTA meets the Patriot Act. (Source.)

     After 9/11, we briefly closed our borders with Canada. A council of business interests in Canada were somewhat alarmed at this, fearing a loss of business and trade in the US. They began pushing the SSP. Since then, the leaders of Mexico, Canada, and the US have been meeting, pretty much secretly, to advance the international merger. Worth noting is the fact that none of this is being covered by the three major news networks — although apparently Lou Dobbs said something about it a couple of months ago. In fact, not only are the major networks not covering this item of interest, but many action groups and major newspapers have spoken briefly about it, mostly dismissing it as “conspiracy theory”. After spending all morning yesterday reading about it, I will say that some articles come across as quite alarmist (probably for good reason), but that it certainly doesn’t seem to be a “conspiracy theory”.

A July 13th Washington Post article smeared those warning of a North American Union as “merchants of fear and exaggeration” and dismissed the agenda to merge the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a single union as nothing more than “vitriol and paranoia,” despite the fact that President Bush himself referred to the SPP as a “union” in March 2005 during a meeting with Paul Martin and Vicente Fox. (Source.)

     The upshot of this is that, behind our backs, our leaders have been quietly meeting, planning a nation-shaking move, and no one asked us about it. I mean, unless I missed the memo — ? I don’t think I did.
     I don’t want you to walk away from this post thinking that I’m getting all worked up over NAFTA or the occasionally-discussed “CAFTA” — the Canadian version of NAFTA that’s been talked about. I’m talking about a European Union style national merger, possibly complete with its own currency (”Amero” and “North American Dollar” are being floated as names for the new currency), and certainly complete with open borders and a harmonizing of laws. This would go a long ways towards explaining why the Bush Administration doesn’t seem to give much of a damn about illegal immigrants — in a few years, they won’t be illegal anymore.
     I’m not educated enough, as far as economics goes, to say whether or not a North American Union would be a good or bad thing. From my comfy little every-man (and woman) armchair, I can see a lot of potential pros and cons to the situation. I’m not entirely sure that joining our dollar, and the Canadian dollar, to the Mexican peso is that great an idea, but my husband seems to think that it might alleviate some of the problems NAFTA caused. Pessimist that I am, I rather think the NAFTA problems would get worse, but hey, I could be wrong. I hope I am. (I doubt it though — one thing that’s already occurred due to the step-by-step harmonizing of laws and regulations is that Canada has raised the amounts of pesticides that are allowed to be used on their crops, to match ours, instead of us lowering our levels to match their much better and greener levels. (Source.))
     What I am extremely displeased with is the fact that none of us — Mexican, Canadian, or American — are being asked about this. As far as my country goes, this seems the sort of thing that Congress should get a chance to discuss, debate, and vote on, and that isn’t happening. The president of the United States, backed by his corporate cronies, is not allowed to just up and decide, “Hey, let’s be a union!” That’s like a six-year-old getting his buddies to be a “boys-only” pirate gang one Saturday afternoon, for fucksake. Of course, the European Union was built the same way, largely secretly, and without consulting their citizens. But, that could never happen in America, right? Especially not under George W. Bush, because he’s been so damn good about safe-guarding our rights and civil liberties.
     So what, exactly, are we supposed to be doing about this? Well, I’ll be firing emails off to my representatives, for whatever good that does, but I’ll also be firing notes off to CNN and MSNBC on a regular basis, because the best thing we can do is get this discussed in the media, seriously. Once people know about it, and a good, old-fashioned American fuss is raised over it, we might at least be able to get it booted into Congress for something resembling actual democratic debate. I’m not going to hold my breath, but I am going to be emailing a lot of people.
     Sources:

• ‘Late, Great USA’ No. 28 at New York Times
• North American Union Will Kill The Dollar
• Big business calls the shots now
• North American Union — connecting the dots
• No Security, Prosperity or Sovereignty for Canada in a North American Union
• Dangerous pact with Canada, Mexico
• No “Conspiracy Theory”: OKC Mayor Signed North American Union Document
• Canadians completely unaware of looming North American Union
• Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America
• Independent Task Force on North America

     (Photo credits: Here, here, and here.)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Controversies, Politics, Ranting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.