- The title refers to the Security and Prosperity Partnership
of North America (SPP), also known as the North American Union - formerly
launched at a March 23, 2005 Waco, Texas meeting attended by George Bush,
Mexico's President Vincente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.
It's for a tri-national agreement, below the radar, for greater economic,
political, and security integration with secret business and government
working groups devising binding policies with no public knowledge or legislative
debate.
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- In short, it's a military-backed corporate coup d'etat
against the sovereignty of three nations, their populations and legislative
bodies. It's a dagger through the heart of democratic freedom in all
three, yet the public is largely unaware of what's happening.
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- Last April, New Orleans hosted the last SPP summit. Ever
since, progress may have stalled given the gravity of the global economic
crisis and top priority need to address it. Nonetheless, what's known
to date is updated below plus some related information.
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- Last September, the Army Times reported that the 3rd
Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team in Iraq would be re-deployed at home
(October 1) as "an on-call federal response force for natural or
manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks."
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- "This marks the first time an active unit has been
given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established
in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts
and coordinate defense support of civil authorities."
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- Then on December 1, the Washington Post reported that
the Pentagon will deploy 20,000 troops nationwide by 2011 "to help
state and local officials respond to a nuclear attack or other domestic
catastrophe." Three "rapid-reaction" combat units are planned.
Two or more others may follow. They'll be supplemented by 80 smaller
National Guard units trained to respond to chemical, biological, radiological,
nuclear, high-yield explosive, and other domestic "terror" attacks
or disturbances. In other words, homeland militarization and occupation
are planned using troops trained to kill.
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- The pretext is national security. In fact, they'll be
on-call against another major terrorist attack, real or contrived, as
well as civil unrest given the gravity of the economic crisis, its affect
on millions, and likelihood that sooner or later they'll react. Armed
combat troops will supplement militarized local police in case security
crackdowns are ordered or martial law declared.
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- "Catastrophic Emergency" procedures are in
place to react to situations, "natural or manmade," according
to DHS/FEMA's March 2008 "Preparedness for the Next Catastrophic
Disaster" policy paper. Should conditions warrant, initiatives to
suspend the Constitution and declare martial law are in place, but militarizing
America for business is also at issue.
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- Last October 1, the Canadian Action Party posted a "COUP
IN USA ALERT" after the Bush administration announced the homeland
deployment of troops with "$100 billion (bailout) dollars" to
do it.
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- What's Likely in Prospect
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- SPP efforts paused during the Bush to Obama transition,
but "deep integration" plans remain. On January 19, Ottawa's
Carleton University's Centre for Trade Policy and Law outlined an agenda
for America and Canada going forward. It called for "early and sustained
cooperation" at a time of continuing global crisis, to include security,
defense, trade and competitiveness.
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- It said the "most pressing issue is the need to
re-think the architecture for managing North America's common economic
space (including) trade liberalization." It used language like "re-
imagining (and) modernizing the border" that reads like erasing it
and doing the same with Mexico. In a similar vein, it recommends "integrating
national regulatory regimes into one that applies on both sides of the
border." It called the arrival of a new Washington administration
"a golden opportunity" to forge a "mutually beneficial
agenda (that) will define global and North American governance for years
to come."
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- It mentioned the specter of protectionism and need to
avoid it given the current economic climate. It advocates a "more
ambitious Canada-US Partnership" beyond NAFTA," in co-partnership
with Mexico.
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- Titled "North America Next," a recent Arizona
State University North American Center for Transborder Studies report
called for "sustainable and security competitiveness" and deeper
US-Canada- Mexico integration through "sustainable security and effective
trade and transportation (to) make (the three nation) North America (n
partnership) safer, more economically viable, and more prosperous."
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- Both Carleton and Arizona State University project participants
want SPP initiatives invigorated under a new Washington administration,
especially in a climate of global economic crisis when addressing it takes
precedence.
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- Other Issues in Play
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- "The Canadian's" Mike Finch "North American
Union (NAU) watch" reports that US and Canadian organizations want
to end free flow Internet information. He cites an "net-neutrality
activist group" discovery of "plans for the demise of the free
Internet by 2010 in Canada," and by 2012 globally.
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- Canada's two largest ISPs, Bell Canada and TELUS, are
behind a scheme to limit browsing, block out sites, and charge fees on
most others as part of a 2012 "planned full (NAU) launching."
Web host I Power's Reese Leysen called it "beyond censorship: it
is killing the biggest (ever) 'ecosystem' of free expression and freedom
of speech." He cited big company inside sources providing information
on "exclusivity deals between ISPs and big content providers (like
TV studios and video game publishers) "to decide which sites will
be in the standard package offered customers, leaving the rest of the
Internet unreachable except for fees."
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- Leysen called his source "100% reliable" and
cited similar information from a Dylan Pattyn Time magazine article, based
on Bell Canada and TELUS sources. Plans are for "only the top 100
- 200 sites making the cut in the initial subscription package,"
likely to include major news outlets at the expense of smaller, alternative
ones. "The Internet would become a playground for billion-dollar
content providers," like cable TV providers, unless efforts are made
to stop it.
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- Leysen thinks US and global ISPs have similar plans that
include free speech restrictions and privacy invasions. The stakes are
high if he's right. Yet the profit potential is huge and friendly governments
may oblige. Also involved are "deceptive marketing and fear tactics"
(like citing child pornography threats) to gain public approval for subscription
services masquerading as online safety. The time to stop it is now.
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- Earlier Plans to Rename SPP/NAU
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- Last March, Canada's Fraser Institute proposed it in
an article titled: "Saving the North American Security and Prosperity
Partnership" at a time of mounting criticism. It recommended discarding
NAU in favor of the "North American Standards and Regulatory Area
(NASRA)" to disguise its real purpose. It called the "SPP brand"
tarnished so changing it was essential to continue where NAFTA left off
by combining security with quality of life issues like food safety, global
warming, climate change, and pandemic diseases. It also wants better communications
to sell it to the public. Their idea is to fool most people until it's
too late to matter.
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- Rumblings in America at the State Level
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- Running counter to "deep integration," News
with Views (NWV) writer Jim Kouri headlined on February 23: "Individual
States Declaring Sovereignty." He cites political strategist Mike
Baker saying "Americans are becoming disenchanted with the federal
government's lack of perspective on" matters like: "illegal
aliens, crime, (and) economic turmoil - while intruding into the private
lives of citizens with gun-control laws and other intrusions," issues
our Founding Fathers "relegated to the individual states." Bothersome
also are unfunded mandates that states can't handle given their over-stretched
budgets and need to cut back. In addition, Washington's intrusion into
local law enforcement is a big issue.
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- So far, nine states have declared sovereignty and another
dozen or more are considering it. Enacted or proposed legislation varies
from all states' rights to selective ones like gun control and abortion.
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- As of January 30, Washington State is one of the former
under House and Senate bill HJM-4009 stating:
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- "The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States specifically provides that, 'The powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;' and The Tenth
Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being those powers
specifically granted to it by the Constitution of the United States and
no more."
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- Earlier in January, New Hampshire enacted similar legislation
(HCR-6) "affirming States' rights based on Jeffersonian principles."
Other states doing it totally or in part include California, Arizona,
Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Georgia. In addition, the following
states are considering similar measures: Colorado, Pennsylvania, Illinois,
Indiana, Kansas, Arkansas, Idaho, Alabama, Maine, Nevada, Hawaii and Alaska,
and reportedly, Wyoming and Mississippi may as well.
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- Besides states rights issues, driving the current movement
are:
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- -- the grave and deteriorating economy;
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- -- Wall Street's harmful control over policy;
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- -- its effects on checks and balances;
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- -- excessive bailouts for an insolvent and corrupted
banking system at the expense of local state budgets and rights; and
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- -- reckless and unsustainable spending and national debt
levels driving the nation to bankruptcy and placing untenable burdens
on states.
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- Overall, concern is that Washington is complicit in driving
the nation to ruin, and they want out or at least lean that way. If this
movement gains strength, at the least it will slow "deep integration,"
stall it for a considerable time, but won't likely halt it. Corporate
America wants it, and most often what it wants, it gets.
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- It may just take longer than planned, much longer given
the gravity of the global crisis, how hard it will be to resolve, and
how long doing it will take. Some experts predict another Great Depression
as bad or worse than the first one and far worse than Japan's "lost
decades" - from 1990 to the present.
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- Top priority in world capitals and corporate boardrooms
is preventing it if possible. Except for "national security,"
other initiatives are secondary.
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- Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre
for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached
at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
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- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
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