C-Span caller: Canada, Mexico and the U.S. to form alliance like EU

[msgadget]

by 2010. She mentioned the website and I've been looking but I need some help. Has anyone heard of this before? So far I've found one entry at . Is this a right-wing boogy man or, as the (scary looking) author at Worldnet says below, could it be the 'natural progression' from trade agreements?

...the vast majority of native-born Americans of African and European descent consider the notion of a supranational American Union with Canada, Mexico and various Central American countries to be unthinkable and would oppose it if they recognized it to be the natural progression from NAFTA and the FTAA.

(Don't tell me - I'm already considering the source.)

[Democrat 4 Ever]

1. Heard that call this morning live. The caller sounded like she was

off her meds. Sorry, but the long, rambling discourse kinda got muddled up in her delivery. She didn't sound connected to reality and her tinfoil hat was on kinda tight, IMHO. Thought it was funny that the host made sure and noted the follow up call was on the repug line - thus the wacko had to be a Dem since they rotate back and forth between calls.

[msgadget]

2. LOL! I thought the same thing but

ya never know what politicians and radio hosts and bloggers, etc. are telling people to rally them for or against something. I'm curious if this is, possibly, a whisper campaign of some sort.

[IsItJustMe]

6. I actually think the caller was on the INDEPENDENT line.

[donsu]

3. I posted about this too but I didn't get the address - thanks for it

she didn't sound crazy to me.

and didn't she say that Congress had been briefed?

[msgadget]

4. She sounded anxious

and aren't we all that these days? I didn't hear the part about briefing Congress. Will you post back here if you find anything more? It's not out of the realm of possibility. I've looked a little but I can't seem to come up with the magic search strings. I'll be offline for a bit but I want to follow this up.

[gimama]

5. I heard the call,& am wondering,too..

And 2 weeks ago I got a press release about a 'joint war game/exercise' between the 3 Nations,it will be performed soon,on both USA borders,struck me as odd,at the time..I will look for it,again..

[msgadget]

7. I'd be interested in

the contents of that press release. Will you post back if you find it, please?

[gimama]

11. Found it! the FREAKS!

See what You think about this?
www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=31&i=652&t=652
and then..winnipeg.indymedia.org/ had an article,this is all I found..

[msgadget]

13. Yikes! And, check out answer #12 in this thread

for another take on it. Your findings are worse than mine because mine are just the usual greed deals (why call 'em anything else) for industry but yours proves the old Opposite Song is in full voice to give cover. Now, where'd she get the year 2010...? And, what about Congress - what do they know?

[gimama]

15. This needs diggin' into..

The link I posted also had a washpost link on it, but wouldn't let me see it..I'm going to dig some more..but heck,yeah,THIS is worrisome..
the FREAKS.If they put this much energy in doin' GOOD,we'd ALL be doin' fine..takes alot of maneuvering to screw stuff up this bad,and this sneaky stuff is just tooo much. I'm also more fed UP by congress than expecting some danged CHECKS~N~BALANCES!

[msgadget]

19. Why the back door dealings, the hearings on immigration that don't

mention this SPP? I mean, if it's for our (the citizens of Canada, the United States and Mexico) benefit... <insert big ol' snort right here> One thing for sure, stock holders will cheer.

[applegrove]

8. I guess that means we will have US dollar. Which would be bad

for Canada if it happened in the last century. But seeing as how our dollar will rise and rise and rise as Alberta exports oil for the next 100 years... a U.S. dollar would help us keep the dollars we trade in low..Would also help the U.S. with the bourse.

I will have to hold my nose on this one. And go with it.

Nothing I would hate more than if all other Canadian industry tanked because the Canadian dollar was so high in the next 100 years. We would end up a one industry country like Saudi Arabia. Ug!

So I taking it that the U.S. dollar will be the North American Euro at some point.

I wonder how Mexico feels? I don't think they should do it.

[msgadget]

10. If an alliance means the borders are open

it's a win-win but I finally found an article (posted below) which doesn't say anything about a common currency or the year 2010.

[applegrove]

24. I don't think the borders should be open, open. We could go with

the US dollar when ours starts to sky-rocket and keep some regulations and such. I will read up on this stuff when I have the time.

[msgadget]

26. Yes, do that

read http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/NorthAmerica_TF_final.pdf and let me know what you think then.

[IsItJustMe]

9. There have been rumors for years and years regarding the power of the

Council of foreign Affairs and the Trilateral Commission in our government. Like all theories, it's hard to prove.

[msgadget]

12. The Security and Prosperity Partnership

at the :

On March 23, 2005, the United States, Canada and Mexico entered into an unprecedented trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) to establish a common security strategy and promote economic growth, competitiveness and quality of life. At their meeting in Waco, TX, President Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Martin pledged to:

“...establish a common approach to security to protect North America from external threats, prevent and respond to threats within North America, and further streamline the secure and efficient movement of legitimate, low-risk traffic across our shared borders.”

Which led to this whopper, dated today:

...

The pact signed in Waco last year by Paul Martin, George Bush and Vicente Fox, contains no concrete proposals to improve the lives of the continent's ordinary citizens. The agreement stems from the big business agenda and represents a giant step toward full continental integration.

The SPP initiative is intended to harmonize many Canadian and Mexican domestic and foreign policies with those of the U.S. Under the guise of protecting citizens from the threat of terrorism and also facilitating trade, this initiative would involve drastic measures such as a deeper integration of North American energy markets, harmonized treatment of immigrants, refugees or tourists from abroad, and the creation of common security policies. It also promotes steps towards harmonized standards in areas governing health, food safety and the environment.

Sold to the public as merely administrative and regulatory in nature, the SPP agenda is evolving away from the public eye. Tellingly, 15 top CEOs have been invited to join the leader’s summit in Cancun. “The presumptions of the business-led agenda are clear in the wording describing the SPP process where private sector leaders can get high-level meetings, other stakeholders get round table consultations, while the democratic representatives of the citizens only get briefings,” said John Foster of Common Frontiers.

According to Pierre-Yves Serinet, coordinator of the Réseau Québécois sur l’Intégration Continentale (RQIC), the SPP would not survive public scrutiny in any of the three countries. “If Stephen Harper truly believes in transparency and accountability, he has the responsibility of putting the SPP before parliament and the Canadian public. Otherwise, he should not proceed with this agenda.”

Common Frontiers, RQIC, the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC), and the Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART-USA) are all members of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a network that has played a central role in opposing ‘free trade’ negotiations throughout the Americas. The four North American coalitions are representative of a range of organizations including church groups, labour, student unions, women’s groups, environmental organizations, international development agencies, human rights and other social justice advocates.

[radio4progressives]

14. Excellent Research! " trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership"

caught my eye, so the "wing nut" C-Span caller wasn't so off base after all.

[msgadget]

20. Check it out: Building a North American Community

, a 70 page .pdf right where the caller said it'd be on th cfr.org website. I gotta read this thing but a couple things caught my eye as I was browsing through it:

Our economic focus should be on the creation of a common economic space...

[IndianaGreen]

16. Mexico is poised to elect a progressive who has no love for Bush

Bush is the greatest thing that has happened to the Left in Latin America!

Down with "Mr. Danger"!

[msgadget]

18. Hmmm...

remember what happened to Chavez? His supporters took to the street and re-elected him after he was 'removed'. Will Mexicans feel as strongly about regime change or are they so tied to the US economy they'll vote for the status quo?

[IndianaGreen]

21. Meet the future President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

Published on Monday, March 20, 2006 by the Associated Press
Latin American Leftists Redefine Politics
by Traci Carl

The election with the biggest impact on U.S. policy may be in Mexico, where the front-runner, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, could end a 24-year run of conservative leadership that has moved the southern neighbor steadily to the right. Like all Mexican politicians, he has reacted angrily to the U.S. crackdown on illegal immigration.

And while Lopez Obrador has good relations with most of Mexico's business community, he worries some American business interests. A former leader of rowdy labor protests whose left-center party absorbed Mexico's old communists, Lopez Obrador was noted as Mexico City's mayor for handouts to the poor and big-ticket public works projects, an approach to governing that earned him the label many politicians dread: populist.

The term has come to mean short-term pandering to the masses at the expense of the long-term good for all. Similar policies left many Latin American nations deeply in debt and doomed to boom-and-bust economic cycles.

Then there's socialist, a vague term if there ever was one in Latin America, where only Cuban communist Fidel Castro advocates full-on socialist-style public ownership of the means of production. The socialist label is also proudly shared by Chilean free-trader Michelle Bachelet, Venezuelan firebrand Hugo Chavez and Bolivian coca farmer-turned-President Evo Morales.

But under Chavez's brand of "Bolivarian Socialism," the state has tried to maintain a vibrant private sector while claiming an ever-larger role in managing the economy. Morales' "Movement Toward Socialism" party is trying to impose the same changes on Bolivia. And while Peru's outsider presidential candidate Ollanta Humala says he's a "nationalist" not a "socialist," he too would impose greater state control over a free market he considers a "utopia."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0320-03.htm

[msgadget]

23. A socialist free-trader?

THAT'S interesting!

Once-reliable allies can no longer be counted on to support the U.S. in international disputes, and have refused to sign trade deals that preserve subsidies for U.S. industries.

What would that to do to NAFTA, et al? I've been viewing the direction of our government (both parties) as being driven by trade (and oil, and greed), making it difficult for those not willing to go along to gain traction. How good chance does this guy have? With some manufacturing moving out of Mexico to China and the US government pretending to 'fix' the problem of illegal immigration, there's a good chance he can make headway. OTOH, the US needs to have a friendly neighbor. Wonder where they'll be getting their voting machines....?

[GRLMGC]

27. I hope so

while Fox broke the PRIs rule, he hasn't done anything positive for the country. The damage done to Mexico will take awhile to fix but I hope they take a step in the right direction for change.

[msgadget]

17. United States, Mexico, Canada Reiterate Commitment to NAFTA

So WorldNet and the C-Span caller were on the right track, though I still haven't found anything to back up an EU style common currency or the year 2010. I see 'economic growth, competitiveness and productivity'...uh oh.



Officials from the three North American nations reaffirmed their commitment to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as the cornerstone for strengthening regional competitiveness at a March 24 meeting of the NAFTA Free Trade Commission.

...

Over the past 12 years, NAFTA has paved the way for strong economic growth and prosperity and delivered important benefits to consumers, businesses, workers, and farmers throughout North America. Through NAFTA, our countries have created the world's largest free-trade zone - one of the most powerful productive forces in the global economy. As a result of the work we have done today, we look forward to continued growth in trade and investment flows and the resulting increased competitiveness and prosperity of our three countries. In this respect, the completion in 2008 of tariff liberalization will establish virtually tariff-free trade in North America.

...

...We discussed the changing global commercial environment and its implications for Mexico, Canada and the U.S. We reaffirmed our commitment to NAFTA as the cornerstone for strengthening North American competitiveness in today's global economy. We have committed to achieving concrete, commercially relevant results that will continue to ease the flow of goods, services, and capital between our three countries. Specifically, we have initiated work that will focus on sectors and the removal of specific impediments to the free flow of goods, services and capital. We will conduct a thorough review of the operation of the NAFTA working groups and committees in order to identify potential improvements and future work. We will also examine how our three countries might collaborate in the trade agreements with other countries and how elements of the FTAs might inform improvements to NAFTA practices such as transparency and trade facilitation. We agreed that officials will report back to ministers in six months on these issues.

...

[Lexingtonian]

22. well, it is going to happen at some point

I think the wealth and social/political disparaties with the Caribbean countries and Central America are too large for it happen in the next two or three decades. But the forces driving it are very large and historical themselves. All the true power centers of the world- Europe/North Africa, East Asia, North and Central America and the Caribbean countries, and subSaharan Africa with South America- centered on Brazil-, are being driven toward incremental integration.

Covert U.S./Canadian integration began during the Eighties and is expected to become overt public policy in the late 2010s, according to friends I have in the elites of Toronto. It's very logical for Canada- its provinces are on the whole, truthfully, socially and economically more closely tied/related to their U.S. neighbors to the south than their Canadian neighbors to the east or west. What keeps Anglophone Canada united is their British colonial past, but that is slowly fading. The British created this east-west unity at the cost of segregating francophone Quebec, and as the the segregation declines the unity does too.

I don't know why this EU-esque fate is something to be feared. I don't feel there's much point or need for American exceptionalism in the future, it's a leading society in the world due to its polycultural fate and evolution/racial integration far in advance of the other powerful societies, and there's no need for the ideological baggage of its segregated colonial past to be pioneering/leading anymore.

[msgadget]

25. Thank you, Lexingtonian!

I'm not afraid of it happening, I just don't like that it's happening covertly. I realize how much catching up the rest of the world has to do and how the pace of that catch-up is causing us some pain. I also realize how much better these agreements and colaborations would be if there was more transparency.

This future (which is pretty darn near) makes the hearings about illegal immigration an exercise in positioning for the mid-terms and '08, imo.

[applegrove]

28. I have not read it but agree whole-heartedly that transparency is

important. Saluté on bringing this topic forward.

[Lexingtonian]

29. They don't mean to deceive reasonable people like you

It's about keeping the reactionaries who respond violently and stupidly and harm too many people in the process occupied with other, lesser, things. The reactionaries serve their part, to slow the process so that everyone is accommodated, in any case.

Yeah, this illegal immigration brouhaha is yet another final big attempt by the Right to change something in American life back to conditions of the Past. I'm looking at what I see of the picture and I think Republicans don't like what they're seeing. I think this anti-illegal hard line is not rallying enough wavering Republicans strongly enough, its pull is less than expected. And it's drawing a lot more hard, committed, and numerous Hispanic opposition than they anticipated. A lot of Republican election victories in the Southwest and Florida in recent years depend straightforwardly on passivity, conflictedness, and indecision or inconsistency of Hispanic voters about their real interests.

I think this illegal immigration thing is close to backfiring, or any case not worth it, for Republicans. I think by fall it's a net loser for them in swing districts if they get some harsh law through. Wierd, huh.

[msgadget]

30. But, do you think 15 CEOs should have more influence

on this historic alliance than advocates for the populace? Little details like that create distrust and hysteria in a world gone topsy turvy with opportunity for one region closing it off for another. Transparency and equity is required for this to be a trustworthy union. You seem pretty secure in your opinions and I can only hope you're right about reactionaries serving their part. Where do I sign up? :)